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16 pages, 277 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Da Blood of Shesus: From Womanist and Lyrical Theologies to an Africana Liberation Theology of the Blood

by Travis T. Harris and M. Nicole Horsley

Religions 2022, 13(8), 688; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13080688 - 27 Jul 2022

Viewed by 2330

The theme of suffering is intimately tied to the possibilities of the blood as redemptive in theology. Potentially considered a universal pathway to salvation and racial transcendence for people of African descent, “Da Blood of Shesus” asks: Is there redeeming power in the blood for people of African descent? Turning to Womanist and lyrical theologians to postulate an African theological framework which explores redemptive suffering not glorified as inevitable and intricate to the historical Black experience and the church. Lyrical theologians affirm Jesus’ redemptive power of the blood in Hip Hop portraying the ways in which the cross reveals the attributes of God. Womanist theologians challenge the “classical” interpretation of redemptive suffering, illuminating the ways it contributes to Black oppression and wretchedness. Arguably, Womanist and lyrical theologians conjointly point towards liberatory and alternatives to examine redemptive suffering for people of African descent by offering sites to scrutinize and nuance the blood as an indispensable pathway to redemption. An African theological perspective decenters the logics of anti-Blackness proposing suffering is inevitable to Black life and the historical Black experience. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Women Still Run This Thing: Hip Hop, Womanism, Sexuality, and Religion)

13 pages, 278 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dirty South Feminism: The Girlies Got Somethin’ to Say Too! Southern Hip-Hop Women, Fighting Respectability, Talking Mess, and Twerking Up the Dirty South

by Adeerya Johnson

Religions 2021, 12(11), 1030; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12111030 - 22 Nov 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 8558

Abstract

Within southern hip-hop, minimal credit has been given to the Black women who have curated sonic and performance narratives within the southern region. Many southern hip-hop scholars and journalists have centralized the accomplishments and masculinities of southern male rap performances. Here, dirty south feminism works to explore how agency, location, and Black women’s rap (lyrics and rhyme) and dance (twerking) performances in southern hip-hop are established under a contemporary hip-hop womanist framework. I critique the history of southern hip-hop culture by decentralizing male-dominated and hyper-masculine southern hip-hop identities. Second, I extend hip-hop feminist/womanist scholarship that includes tangible reflections of Black womanhood that emerge out of the South to see how these narratives reshape and re-inform representations of Black women and girls within southern hip-hop culture. I use dirty south feminism to include geographical understandings of southern Black women who have grown up in the South and been sexually shamed, objectified and pushed to the margins in southern hip-hop history. I seek to explore the following questions: How does the performance of Black women’s presence in hip-hop dance localize the South to help expand narratives within dirty south hip-hop? How can the “dirty south” as a geographical place within hip-hop be a guide to disrupt a conservative hip-hop South through a hip-hop womanist lens? Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Women Still Run This Thing: Hip Hop, Womanism, Sexuality, and Religion)

15 pages, 265 KiB

Open AccessEssay

D.S. Sense’s “On My Detroit Everything”: Self-Articulating Black Girl Magic

by Kellie D. Hay, Rebekah Farrugia and Deidre “D.S. Sense” Smith

Arts 2018, 7(2), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7020017 - 23 Apr 2018

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 6346

Abstract

Long before the hashtag #BlackGirlMagic was popularized on social network sites Black women in Detroit have been employing art in their processes of self-articulation and efforts to deal with the complexities and challenges of life in the city. The scripts of African American women that dominate the commercial hip hop industry and their impacts on girls and women have received thorough analysis in academia; yet, the practices, representations, and discursive articulations of independent, Black women hip hop artists remain underexplored. In particular, this essay draws on Deidre “D.S. Sense” Smith’s spoken word poem “On My Detroit Everything” to illuminate the counter-narratives and scripts that Black women have been creating to document, validate, and voice their experiences at a critical point in Detroit’s history as it underwent and continues to deal with the after effects of bankruptcy. Hip hop artists who use cultural production to accomplish grass roots community-building offer alternative visions of what it means to do political work. More than a strategy, we argue that such practices serve as the foundation for a movement that is significant and worthy of documentation in the contemporary neoliberal moment where in policies are accelerating the continued disenfranchisement of people of color in cities such as Detroit. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Considering Black Womanhood: Representation in American Media, Arts, and Culture)

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