IN
THE NORTHEAST
• Ernest
Allen Jr. is a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts
in Amherst. His essay “Making the Strong Survive: The Contours and Contradictions
of Message Rap” appears in Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music
and Hip Hop Culture (Temple University Press, 1996). Contact 413-545-2751,
eallen@afroam.umass.edu.
• Josef
Sorett studies religious and spiritual expressions in hiphop music and culture.
He has a master of divinity degree and is a graduate student in African-American
studies at Harvard University, where his dissertation is on race, religion and
the arts in 20th-century America. He has worked extensively with young people
in nonprofits and religious communities. Contact sorett@hiphoparchive.org.
IN
THE EAST • Mark
Lewis Taylor is Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton
Theological Seminary. He wrote Religion, Politics and the Christian Right:
Post-9/11 Powers and American Empire (Fortress Press, 2005) and The Executed
God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Fortress Press, 2001). He
is a commentator on American culture and politics. He has written articles on
hiphop and religion. His expertise also includes race, U.S. prisons, the death
penalty and contemporary anti-war movements. Contact 609-497-7918, mark.taylor@ptsem.edu.
• Darren
A. Ferguson is founder and pastor of Luke
4:18 Ministries, an umbrella organization of hiphop ministers and services
in New York, including the Soldiers of Praise hiphop choir and Friday Night
FLAYVA (Freedom, Love and Abundant Youth Victory Alliance) worship. He is also
youth director for Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Ferguson calls his
preaching style “Hiphop Homiletics” and says hiphop is a new paradigm for youth
ministries. He says streetwise kids respond when they see that God loves people
enough to send somebody who speaks their language. Read a Beliefnet article
titled “Hiphop
Minister: Beware of Cheapening the Gospel.” Contact 917-330-1329, RevFerg@Luke418.org.
• Tonya
Wilder-Butts is manager of the American Bible Society’s Elementz of Life, a
ministry and publication aimed at young people involved with gangs and street
life. The New York society has released a Christian hiphop CD, Conkrete Angels.
Contact 212-408-1486.
• The
Rev. Jason A. Barr Jr. is senior pastor at Macedonia Baptist Church in Pittsburgh,
Pa. He co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation
(Judson Press, 2007). Barr is an adjunct professor at Pittsburgh Theological
Seminary and Geneva College in Pennsylvania. Contact 412-281-8437.
• The
Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant is founder and pastor of the large Empowerment
Temple, an AME church in Baltimore, and was previously director of the NAACP’s
youth and college division. He co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the
Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Contact 443-738-0463.
• The
Rev. William
H. Curtis is senior pastor of Mount
Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Pa. He co-authored The Gospel Remix:
Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Curtis is president
of the influential Hampton University Ministers’ Conference in 2007 and contributed
to Outstanding Black Sermons, Volume 4 (Judson Press, 2001).
Contact him through his assistant, the Rev. Montele A. Crawford, 412-441-1800,
Mcrawford@mt-ararat.org.
• Rutgers
University associate law professor Imani
Perry wrote Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop
(Duke University Press, 2004). She studies race, legal history and culture.
Contact 856-225-6375, iperry@camlaw.rutgers.edu.
• Guthrie
P. Ramsey Jr. is an associate professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia. He leads a band, Dr. Guy’s MusiQologY, and has expertise in
African-American and American music, jazz, cultural studies, popular music,
film studies and historiography. He wrote Race Music: Black Cultures from
Bebop to Hip-Hop (University of California Press, 2003). Contact 215-898-7544,
gramsey@sas.upenn.edu.
IN
THE SOUTHEAST •
Mark Anthony Neal
is an associate professor of black popular culture and African-American studies
at Duke University. His books include Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture
and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (Routledge, 2002) and What the Music Said:
Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (Routledge, 1998). He regards
Christian hiphop as gospel music. Contact 919-684-3987, man9@duke.edu.
• Charles
E. Jones chairs the African-American studies at Georgia State University.
He recently took part in the second annual Hiphop
Summit Behind Prison Walls at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ USP Coleman
II high-security prison near Ocala, Fla., where participants discussed the role
of hiphop in crime and violence in black communities. Contact 404-651-2157,
cjones@gsu.edu.
• Layli
Phillips is associate professor of women’s studies at Georgia State University
in Atlanta, where she is also a faculty affiliate in the African-American studies
department. Her teaching and research are on women and hiphop, womanism,
black feminism and black queer studies. Contact 404-651-2524, layli@gsu.edu.
• Dawn-Elissa
Fischer is an anthropology graduate student at the University of Florida, where
she has taught courses on hiphop culture in the African-American studies department.
She is the education outreach coordinator for Stanford University's Hiphop Archive
and is a founder of the National
Hip-Hop Political Convention. She works with youth in a number of capacities,
including as executive director of Edutainment 4 Life, a collective of consultants
working on programs for underserved youth, and on the advisory board of HOTGIRLS
Inc. (Helping Our Teen Girls in Real Life Situations), a nonprofit using hiphop
to educate girls about sexual health. She has commented on hiphop culture on
Black Entertainment Television and Pacifica Radio. Contact 352-392-5724, deesie@ufl.edu.
• Hampton,
Va., hiphop artist Sean
Slaughter writes a column, Freestylin’,
for GospelFlava.com,
the gospel music industry newsmagazine. He can discuss the relationship between
gospel and hiphop. Contact 877-528-2078, kim@slaughtermusic.com.
• Derrick
P. Alridge is an associate professor in the college of education at the
University of Georgia. He wrote “From Civil Rights to Hiphop: Toward a Nexus
of Ideas,” an article in the 2005 Journal of African American History
(Vol. 90). Contact 706-542-8113, dalridge@uga.edu.
• Melva
Wilson Costen is an authority on music and worship in the black church. She
wrote the widely consulted African American Christian Worship (Abingdon
Press, 1993) and In Spirit and in Truth: The Music of African American Worship
(Westminster, 2004). She recently retired from the Interdenominational Theological
Center in Atlanta, where she was Helmar Emil Nielsen Professor of Music and
Worship. Contact 404-696-9836, mwcosten@mindspring.com.
IN
THE SOUTH
• Brad Mathias is vice president of operations/pastor at Infinity
Music Distribution in Nashville. He can discuss the hiphop genre of Christian
music. Contact 800-251-3052 ext. 2242, brad@infinitymusicdistribution.com.
• James Scandrick directs the Institute on Black Church Sacred Music and
Worship at Nashville’s American Baptist College. Hiphop has a definite place
in worship services, he says, but he worries that traditional black church music
is endangered. Contact 615-256-1463.
• CEO,
pastor and rap recording artist Del Lawrence, aka Mr.
Del, was a member of a secular – and explicit – rap group, Three 6 Mafia,
before he became a Christian six years ago. Since then, he says, he has been
rapping for God. Lawrence leads City of Refuge Church in Memphis, Tenn.; records
with EMI Gospel; and owns Holy South and Nu Soul Records. Contact 901-309-3090,
bookmrdel@gmail.com.
• Felicia
Miyakawa is assistant professor of musicology at the McLean School of Music
at Middle Tennessee State University. She can discuss hiphop music and culture,
African-American music and black nationalism. She wrote Five Percenter Rap:
God Hop’s Music, Message and Black Muslim Mission (Indiana University Press,
2005) and is faculty adviser for the school’s Urban Music Society. Contact 615-898-2469,
miyakawa@mtsu.edu or fmiyakaw@yahoo.com.
• Leo
Davis Jr. is minister of music at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church
in Memphis, Tenn., which is renowned for its gospel music, broadcast on three
local radio stations. Davis has a scholarly background in black church worship
and can discuss contemporary influences and trends in church music. Contact
901-729-6222 ext. 414, davis.leo@mbccmemphis.org, or contact
his assistant, Sharon Smith, ext. 417, smith.sharon@mbccmemphis.org.
IN
THE MIDWEST
• Richard
Brent Turner is an associate professor in the African-American world studies
program at the University of Iowa. Turner wrote Islam in the African-American
Experience (Indiana University Press, 2003) and teaches a course called
“20th-Century African-American Religion: Civil Rights to Hiphop.”
Contact 319-335-2175, richard-turner@uiowa.edu.
• Efrem
Smith is senior pastor at Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis. Smith
co-authored The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the Movement Shaping Our
Culture (IVP Books, 2006). He also wrote Raising Up Young Heroes: Developing
a Revolutionary Youth Ministry (InterVarsity Press, 2004). Contact 612-520-9160.
• Phil Jackson is lead pastor of The
House, a youth and young-adult hiphop church plant in Chicago. The House
is a church plant of the Evangelical Covenant Church, sponsored by Lawndale
Community Church. Jackson founded Bringin’
Da Funk Communications,
a youth ministry. He co-authored The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the
Movement Shaping Our Culture (IVP Books, 2006). Contact 773-762-6389.
• James
W. Perkinson is associate professor of ethics and systematic theology at
the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit. He is studying how socioeconomic
position, race and gender affect the formation of people’s values and identity
early in life. Contact 313-831-5200, jperkinson@etseminary.edu.
• Cathy J. Cohen is professor of political science at the University of
Chicago, where she formerly directed the Center for the Study of Race, Politics
and Culture. She wrote The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown
of Black Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1999). She directs the Black
Youth Project at the University of Chicago, which surveyed attitudes of
1,590 African-Americans, white and Latinos aged 15 to 25 in several Midwest
cities on various topics, including rap music. Contact 773-834-1706.
IN
THE SOUTHWEST
• Juan
Floyd-Thomas is an associate professor of history at Texas Christian University.
He writes about African-American religion, and among his research interests
is the influence of Islam on African-American popular culture. Contact 817-257-6302,
J.Floyd-Thomas@tcu.edu.
• Alan
Lamar Patterson, aka AL
P, got a law degree from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern
University and then became a minister. He is a staff member of Mount Corinth
Church in Houston, where he directs the monthly Friday Night Live, the Happy
Hour of Power. Hiphop is the teacher of his generation, Patterson says. Contact
832-594-0599.
• Teresa
L. Reed is associate professor of music at the University of Tulsa, where she
directs the African American Studies Program. She wrote The Holy Profane:
Religion in Black Popular Music (University Press of Kentucky, 2004). Contact
918-631-3164, teresa-shelton@utulsa.edu.
• Connon
Neal is manager and booking agent for brothers Lil Mike (Jesus Silva II) and
Funny Bone (Jesus
Silva IV). They are Oklahoma City Christian hiphop artists and members of
the Pawnee (Oklahoma) tribe. They have opened for Christian acts and performed
at the Gathering of Nations Powwow. Read about them in an undated Oklahoman
article, “Faith
takes brothers from gangsta to gospel,” posted at Red Lake Net News. Contact
405-923-8640, congoent@sbcglobal.net.
IN
THE WEST/NORTHWEST •
W.P. Middlebrooks
is a lay minister and rap evangelist at People’s Place Church in Pasadena, Calif.,
affiliated with the Church of God in Christ. He has developed Christian hiphop
events and clubs through his Youth United for the World ministry. Contact 626-403-1090,
PeoplesPlaceIntl@aol.com.
• Robin
Sylvan is a member of the art and religion adjunct faculty at the Graduate Theological
Union in Berkeley, Calif., and author of the essay “Rap Music, Hip-Hop Culture
and ‘The Future Religion of the World’ ” in God in the Details: American
Religion in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2000) Contact 510-848-0528 (department),
robinsyl@earthlink.net.
• Kimasi
Browne is director of the ethnomusicology program at Azusa Pacific University
near Los Angeles, where he is an assistant professor of music. Contemporary
religious music trends and hiphop are among his areas of expertise. Contact
626-815-6000 ext. 3586, kbrowne@apu.edu.
• Bobby
Schuller, head of Energizing Ministries for the Crystal Cathedral in Garden
Grove, Calif., and grandson of founder Robert Schuller, holds regular hiphop
church services at the Los Angeles FaithDome, attracting thousands. Contact
714-971-4000.
• The
Rev. Charles
“Chuck” Stephen Currie Jr. is a well-known Christian blogger on youth culture
and is interim minister of Parkrose
Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Ore. He can discuss the pros
and cons of embracing hiphop for smaller, suburban churches. Contact 503-253-5457,
chuck.currie@gmail.com.
• The
Rev. Ralph
C. Watkins is assistant dean of the African-American Church Studies Program
at the multidenominational Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. Watkins
co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson
Press, 2007). Watkins, a pastor and musician, works to resolve gaps between
the hiphop generation and its elders. Contact 626-584-5599, rwatkins@fuller.edu.
