What is Hip Hop? Hip hop speaks in a voice that is sometimes gruff, sometimes enraged, sometimes despairing, sometimes hopeful. Hip hop is the voice of forgotten streets laying claim to the high life of rims and timbs and threads and bling. Hip hop speaks in the muddled language of would-be prophets--mocking the architects of the status quo and stumbling in the dark toward a blurred vision of a world made right. What is hip hop? It's a cultural movement with a traceable theological center. Daniel White Hodge follows the tracks of hip-hop theology and offers a path from its center to the cross, where Jesus speaks truth.

Marveling Religion: Critical Discourses, Religion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an edited volume that explores the intersection of religion and cinema through the lenses of critical discourse. The focus of the shared inquiry are various films comprising the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and corresponding Netflix series. The contributors explore various religious themes and how they intersect with culture through the canon on the MCU. The first part focuses on responses to the societal, governmental, and cultural context that solidified with clarity during the 2016 Presidential Election cycle in the United States and in the following administration. Additionally, it provides lenses and resources for engaging in productive public actions. Part two explores cultural resources of sustaining activism and resistance as well as some of the key issues at stake in public action. The third part centers on militarization and resistance to state violence. Taken in concert, these three sections work together to provide frames for understanding while also keeping us engaged in the concrete action to mobilize social change. The overarching aim of the volume is to promote critical discourse regarding the dynamics of activism and political resistance.

Hip-Hop and Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline was created for K-12 students in hopes that they find tangible strategies for creating affirming communities where students, parents, advocates and community members collaborate to compose liberating and just frameworks that effectively define the school-to-prison pipeline and identify the nefarious ways it adversely affects their lives. This book is for educators, activists, community organizers, teachers, scholars, politicians, and administrators who we hope will join us in challenging the predominant preconceived notion held by many educators that Hip-Hop has no redeemable value. Lastly, the authors/editors argue against the understanding of Hip-Hop studies as primarily an academic endeavor situated solely in the academy. They understand the fact that people on streets, blocks, avenues, have been living and theorizing about Hip-Hop since its inception. This important critical book is an honest, thorough, powerful, and robust examination of the ingenious and inventive ways people who have an allegiance to Hip-Hop work tirelessly, in various capacities, to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.

Hip-Hop and Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline was created for K-12 students in hopes that they find tangible strategies for creating affirming communities where students, parents, advocates and community members collaborate to compose liberating and just frameworks that effectively define the school-to-prison pipeline and identify the nefarious ways it adversely affects their lives. This book is for educators, activists, community organizers, teachers, scholars, politicians, and administrators who we hope will join us in challenging the predominant preconceived notion held by many educators that Hip-Hop has no redeemable value. Lastly, the authors/editors argue against the understanding of Hip-Hop studies as primarily an academic endeavor situated solely in the academy. They understand the fact that people on streets, blocks, avenues, have been living and theorizing about Hip-Hop since its inception. This important critical book is an honest, thorough, powerful, and robust examination of the ingenious and inventive ways people who have an allegiance to Hip-Hop work tirelessly, in various capacities, to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.

Is there such a thing as a Hip Hop theology? Drawing on interviews from those in the Hip Hop community, and a critical engagement with the theological and ecclesiological ruminations of over 8,500 songs, Hodge aims to paint a picture of what a Hip Hop theology of community might entail, how it may look, and what it could feel like.

Tupac Amaru Shakur is considered a Hip Hop saint and theologian. Though he is dead (September 13, 1996), his words, lyrics, and life still live on as a symbol of hope for many in the urban community. Tupac was the irreverent Reverend for many, in the inner city as well as the suburbs. This book deals with the gospel and theological message of Tupac Amaru Shakur from a missiological perspective. The book investigates the lyrical, poetic, and spiritual message of Tupac in relation to understanding and engaging with Hip Hop youth. This book is not an ethnomusicological study, rather an urban cultural study with a stress on the ethnomusicological aspects of Tupac's music. Narrative is central to the book; the narrative Tupac wove connects his audience not only to life and the issues it brings in general, but also to the story of Christ and the struggles Christ faced. Ethnolifehistory is used to analyze Tupac's life. In addition to this, ethnohistory aids in dissecting Tupac's life into five major eras. Hip Hop and urban popular culture provide the context for the study, and urban postmodernism is discussed as a platform in which Tupac rose and preached from.