“I wonder what Lecrae would do?”
Kendrick Lamar raps this on “watch the party die,” and it caused a shift.
I wonder what Lecrae has done? I wonder what has been done to Lecrae?
These two follow-up questions surfaced in my mind after hearing Kendrick Lamar’s recent social media release, popularly but unofficially titled “watch the party die.” The nod to Dee-1 and Lecrae comes after a long list of grievances stated by Lamar. His complaint is voiced against aspects of Hip Hop culture and the current state of the industry.
[embedded content]
The acknowledgment of Lecrae and Dee-1 by Lamar, presently the most prolific voice in hip-hop, was well received by the self-defined community of CHH. Commentators celebrated the work of Dee-1, Lecrae, and the entire CHH community for standing as a beacon of light, hope, and transformation.
Lecrae, Dee-1, KB, Ruslan, and many other public figures and artists have commented on the significance of this historical moment.
But as I heard the song, I had to wonder if Lamar was really looking to Lecrae as a way forward exclusively. Is he really referencing Lecrae’s character only? Or is his a statement of awareness of the violence perpetrated against Lecrae by the dominant Hip-Hop industry?
In one sense, Lamar is acknowledging the positive work of these two artists in transforming Hip-Hop culture. In another sense, I think Lamar’s statement is one of irony and calculated awareness of industry violence.
“I wonder what Lecrae would do?”
The question begs a complete unawareness of what Lecrae has done from the perspective of the dominant Hip-Hop culture. Lamar knows Lecrae well enough to readily acknowledge what he has accomplished in the past and what he would do in the current culture—which is to simply keep doing what he has been doing.
But what about Hip-Hop—the Hip-Hop industry? Does it even have the space, the knowledge, the freedom to wonder what Lecrae would do? Or does Lamar know well enough the segregation perpetuated against Lecrae, stifling the possibility, imagination, and agency of artists within Hip-Hop culture?
The fact that so many folks are talking about the “faith-based” or “Christian artist” Lecrae in some sense completely misses the irony of Lamar’s statement. This brings me to the two follow-up questions provoked by Lamar’s lyrics: I wonder what Lecrae has done, and, more importantly, I wonder what has been done to Lecrae and by extension the entire industry of Hip-Hop?
I wonder what Lecrae has done?
Lecrae is often celebrated as the face of Christian Hip-Hop. His music centers on the gospel of Jesus Christ. His response to Lamar is saturated in Biblical imagery, theological references, and well-known passages from scripture.
Lecrae is a child of Jesus, but he was also raised in the household of Hip-Hop, to borrow a term from DJ Kool Herc. Lecrae talks a lot about Jesus, but he often raps about many other things in his music, including the legacy of Hip-Hop culture.
Take for instance his song “Facts,” in which he articulates the following lyrics:
Know you think I’m too Black
I just think I’m too real
I grew up on Tupac
Later in his message, he nods again to Tupac when rapping, “Rose up out the dungeon,” likely a dual acknowledgment not only of the Apostle Paul’s departure from prison chains but also of Tupac’s famous poem, “The rose that grew from the concrete.”
Listeners of Lecrae may recall an additional invocation of Tupac’s legacy in his Church Clothes song “Black Rose.”
Lecrae is a child of Hip-Hop in the truest sense. He grew up in an era when hip hop was at its highest point in its indigenous roots. Because of this, he has a pulse on the culture and its developing trajectory, and he keenly knew its headed movement long before Lamar spit his verse.
Lecrae gave the world two impactful art pieces in 2016, nearly a decade ago. The first was his song “Gangland,” in which he tactfully unpacks the history of the war on drugs and its consequences on Black and poor communities. The second artful masterpiece was a TEDx Talk delivered by Lecrae entitled “Heroes and Villains: Is Hip Hop a Cancer or a Cure.”
The TEDx Talk and song are two parts of Lecrae’s researched understanding and personal experience, not so much within the house of God but rather from within the deteriorating walls of Hip-Hop. In this lecture, Lecrae describes in detail the ongoing trends within Rap.
He articulates that Hip-Hop began as an indigenous cultural expression of Black and Brown bodies outside the realm of power.
He argues that Hip-Hop has become a narrative of description. Lecrae actually uses the language of an “audio documentary.” He says Hip-Hop was a “narration” not a “glorification” on the “infestation of drugs.” Lecrae references music from Grand Master Flash, Melle Mel, and Run DMC to demonstrate his argument. His use of these lyrics showcases the likelihood of past mental pathways where a young Lecrae rapped along to these tracks.
He can quote a scripture. He can quote a culture.
So, what has Lecrae done?
Lecrae has kept Hip-Hop indigenous. Maybe not always, and maybe not perfectly. Sho Baraka for instance departed from Reach Records with its very real prospects of uprooting Hip-Hop culture and displacing it in white evangelicalism, which of course thankfully failed for a litany of reasons. Sho Baraka and Lecrae have since maintained a lasting and positive relationship.
Any listener of Lecrae, along with many other artists in the circle of CHH, has witnessed an effort to narrate social problems and advocate for community uplift.
And Lecrae has kept that memory of Hip-Hop culture alive in his own music. You cannot divorce him or deny him his home and his roots.
Lecrae has grown from his roots and has kept his music indigenous.
I wonder what has been done to Lecrae?
But what has happened to Lecrae throughout his career and his relationship with Hip-Hop culture? And to what extent is Lamar aware of Lecrae’s complex journey?
As long as I can remember, debates about Lecrae and definitions of Christian Hip-Hop have emerged time and again. He kinda hates the label but also accepts it.
I think for Lecrae, the label of Christian Hip-Hop is actually his cross.
It is his witness to the world of Rap, the world of Evangelicals, and even the world of Christian Hip-Hop listeners to the real violence that he and many other artists have faced in their efforts to keep their narrative personal, reflecting a lived reality.
What is this violence against Lecrae?
What is the long-standing machine of violence perpetuated against Black bodies in this country?
Sin. Race. Capitalism.
Markets are ongoing forms of violence that historically and presently impact negatively various populations. Think about the history for a moment. Black bodies were dragged to the North American continent for the growth of the cotton market. Think about cotton. Light. Fragile. Yet an entire people were stooped beneath the force of that market. There was money behind the market. Owners of the market needed bodies to fulfill the quota of the market. The market, in degrees of violence, defined the limitations, the movement, and the lifespan of those bodies.
And who was the market for? White plantation owners. Where was the cotton sent? White manufacturers in Britain. They perhaps abolished slavery, but they kept the cotton market moving.
So, what does this have to do with Lecrae?
Lecrae understands the market of Hip-Hop. He states in his TEDx Talk that the biggest consumers of Hip-Hop are not Black and Brown youth, but rather white suburban listeners. Dr. Patricia Rose, a long-standing scholar in Hip-Hop Studies, also implicitly voiced this argument in 2016 when she spoke on the White House Chronicle show. She states that motifs in Hip-Hop emerge from Black criminality stereotypes demanded by consumers, although she is not direct in pointing out the categories of listeners influencing these stereotypes.
The violent messaging, the misogyny, and the glorification of drugs all emerged as a narrative of entertainment for white consumers detached from the social realities of the voices producing the music. For many Black consumers, it emerged as a destructive narrative to emulate.
What does this mean for Hip-Hop? The narrative is no longer imaginative, diverse, or niche. Mainstream rap has a defined narrative given the pool of its consumers. As Dr. Rose points out, the narratives diminished as the genre expanded.
One very recent and direct example of this is the Somali Canadian artist, K’naan, who received a Grammy this year in the category of Song For Social Change for his 2023 track, “Refugee.” K’naan, after becoming a global sensation with his hit song “Wavn’ Flag,” disappeared in 2012 once his label told him to pivot his message from focusing on his Somali refugee and immigration experience to music that is more appealing to the American market.
K’naan, in reflecting on his own experience, wrote in a 2012 New York Times op-ed titled “Censoring Myself for Success” about the artistic limitation placed on him by his label. He writes, “I come with all the baggage of Somalia — of my grandfather’s poetry, of pounding rhythms, of the war, of being an immigrant, of being an artist, of needing to explain a few things. Even in the friendliest of melodies, something in my voice stirs up a well of history — of dark history, of loss’s victory.”
He concludes his article by saying he is trying to recover his original, encultured stride forgotten by the pace and demands of success in the American music market.
His recent reemergence is a demonstration of artist agency over industry demands.
But in many cases, the market determines the message. And the message is harming the actual communities that created the beautiful art of Hip-Hop.
For example, Reconcile, in his own TEDx Talk on prison reform, reflects on how he told a room of juvey kids that “for every one NBA YoungBoy, or for every one Kodak Black, there’s ten-thousand of ya’ll up in here.” He finished his talk with a story about two young friends who heard his gospel-centered message of salvation and community change. He later saw the news that these young men died for emulating the lifestyles depicted in popular Hip-Hop music.
The market encourages violence, and the violence is felt by artists like Lecrae.
Lecrae has offered a positive model for Hip-Hop to follow. But why does the Rap industry fail to witness Lecrae’s impact? Because the market operates under de facto segregation.
Think about the label “Christian Rap.” This label is not a claim on culture exclusively, nor does it function only as a community point of definition. “Christian rap” operates as a market for consumers specifically. Lecrae never wanted the market limitations. He wanted his indigenous lived experience. It was never about Christian rap or mainstream rap. Lecrae just wanted to rap. He grew up in a time when artists narrated their lives. Lecrae’s faith is part of his life. It’s indigenous to his existence along with his roots in Hip-Hop.
But the market demands categories, and “Christian Rap,” “Christian Hip-Hop,” and “Gospel Rap” all emerge as market or submarket categories that end up segregating artists and limiting their influence in larger Hip-Hop culture.
Think about Lecrae’s track record: four Grammys, music label co-owner, consistent music output, inter-genre collaborations, and the list goes on. His latest Grammy nomination won nearly one hundred music collaborators a Grammy. He is literally giving prison inmates voices through Hip-Hop. And yet who is listening to Lecrae in the dominant Hip-Hop culture? Apparently, Lamar. But so many others just know Lecrae as the “Christian rapper.”
Why the fixation on the market? The history of capitalism justified slavery through a logic of race and separation. The Black body and the Black soul were placed in disparate categories. The soul required conversion, but the body was never afforded social uplift or empowerment. It was an argument of duality. There was also the false assumption that Black bodies failed to achieve intellectual accomplishment due to race. This is why Benjamin Banneker, the Black surveyor of the nation’s capital, wrote to Thomas Jefferson and referenced his complexion as the “deepest dye.” He was claiming his skin and his intellect.
The industry of Hip-Hop to some degree functions with this same logic of body-soul separation. These are the steps of the violent marketplace: divorce the body from the spirit, view the Black intellect as lesser, and if the spiritual is too strong, place it in a category and suppress it. Why? It disrupts the flow of the dominant market.
People are making a bag based on narratives of violence. Artists like Lecrae and Dee-1 are attempting to push back against these narratives. And they are pursuing this work not as spiritual or missionary outsiders, but as genuine voices from the culture and for the culture.
So, when Lamar raises the question, “I wonder what Lecrae would do,” this may be a question of, “What would Lecrae do after everything that’s been done to him?” Lecrae attempted to keep Hip-Hop indigenous, which resulted in placing him in a “faith only” category and limiting his influence on larger Hip-Hop culture. He has some phone numbers of the biggest names in Rap, but the industry can’t take his message. Relationships and art are stifled by market boundaries.
And it goes both ways. Christians go after Lecrae if he engages Hip-Hop too closely. Everyone wants to decide and determine where the artist can go, what the artist should do, and the art that the artist should create. The market limits agency. But agency is what we need if Hip-Hop is ever to change.
I wonder what Hip Hop will do.
In the world of capitalism, ownership is a prerequisite for agency.
When Lamar poses the thought, “I wonder what Lecrae would do,” my simplified answer is, “whatever Lecrae wants,” because he has the freedom and ownership to do so. If the larger Hip-Hop industry crumbles, I think Lecrae will be fine. For the Hip-Hop marketplace, ownership may be the way forward, but only after the larger industry falls apart. It needs to be community-centered, not market-oriented.
The way forward may also be a celebration of the culture and art that predates the expression of Hip-Hop in the first place.
In his response to Lamar, Lecrae raps:
Stuck in the middle of this madness what should I choose
I should be choosing between Howard and Hampton
I love the people I ran with but look at the damage
Lecrae openly points to a higher culture inherent within Black history, life, and intellect. This is a history of Black agency and achievement. At the same time, he is aware of the structures impacting his family, his community, and his very own people. He raps in his song “Blockhead,” “Got some family in the feds when they should be picking majors.” And he states in his TEDx Talk that his mother’s greatest fear was not whether he would attend college, but rather if he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
He beat those odds, and he’s using Hip-Hop to help others move upward and onward.
Lecrae has pointed Hip-Hop to a higher way, not merely one of faith, but one of storytelling, Black history, art, literature, and so on.
But Lecrae has also put his entire career on the line to express his narrative. When referencing the gospel in his response to Lamar, he says that he’s trusting in the narrative, one in which death brought new life. Lecrae, in his lived experience, is speaking to a personal reality.
From death came new life, but who’s willing to sacrifice? Life comes after death, but maybe a death no one expected and a life no one imagined. If anything, Hip-Hop needs to be born again, but not necessarily in the Christian sense entirely.
Harlem had its own Renaissance. Why not Hip Hop? Why not now?
If more artists had a heart like Dee-1 and started asking “I wonder what Lecrae would do?,” we actually might witness a cultural Renaissance and shift in Hip-Hop.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
