Call it a clique, call it a gang, call it a family, call it whatever–everybody’s got one. Whatever you want to call it, every rap artist who is going to survive makes it with the help of his team.
Jesus can carry a metaphor like the Vine and Branches for 17 verses without taking a breath, and he can confound an entire crowd with his offensive metaphors about eating his flesh and blood. In one episode we may find Jesus crossing up Nicodemus with hot lines about being born again, another day we hear him by a well as he compares himself to living water. Metaphors ARE rap music.Īgain, Jesus Christ is King of metaphors especially when the Apostle John is producing the record. It’s funny to me that people characterize rap as music where the beat is primary. Metaphors are what make a song flow to the beat. They’re what communicates the braggadocio. They’re what elicit that “OHH!” response from crowd. By definition, a rhyme contains metaphor.
When an artist talks about “rhymes”, he doesn’t just mean lines ending with words that sound the same. In fact, it’s not a hip-hop song if there aren’t any metaphors. Metaphors are the bread and butter of any good hip-hop song. I can’t believe I left this one off Volume I. Multiplicity of monikers make for variety, nuance, and mixing of metaphors, and Jesus did it better than the best. When laying down his own lines, Jesus calls himself “Bread of Life”, “The Light”, “I AM”, “The Good Shepherd”, “True Vine”, and “The Resurrection” just to name a few. At times he goes by “The Word”, “Son of God”, “The Christ”, and “The Lamb of God”. None of these artists can hold a candle to the host of stage names that Jesus appropriates in John’s Gospel. Eminem also goes by his full name “Marshall Mathers” and his alter-ego “Slim Shady”. Jay-Z has called himself “Hova”, “Lucky Lefty”, and “Jigga”. For instance, Lil’ Wayne often refers to himself as “Lil’ Wheezy”, “Wheezy F”, and “Mr.
Hip-hop artists tend to go by one stage name, but in their rhymes they play with different variants of the name, along with other nuanced self-references. Here are six more reasons I believe listening to good hip-hop can make you a better interpreter of John’s Gospel.
What if I told you that listening to hip-hop could actually hone your skills in Biblical interpretation? In an article I wrote in September, I argued that there are at least 7 distinct similarities between the way the hip-hop genre functions and the way John’s Gospel is written (e.g., collaboration, double entendre, sampling).
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