Urbansouls: Reflections on Youth, Religion, and Hip-Hop Culture

By Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou

urbansouls foreshadows the Ferguson uprising by offering keen insight on the social and cultural situation of the greater St. Louis region. Written while serving as a youth pastor and community center director in the late '90s, Sekou theorizes on race, class and gender. urbansouls reads the religious sensibilities of hip hop as a meaning-making activity for those who have been alienated from society's traditional institutions such as the church. The book is written for all those who are interested in the plight of youth. Theologians, public policy makers, youth workers, and social service providers will be presented with eyewitness account of the conditions that urban youth struggle with on a day-to-day basis, long before the killing of Michael Brown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Release date: Feb 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9780827238626

Book preview

Critical Acclaim for First Edition of urbansouls

"urbansouls is the most eloquent meditation on the urban condition I’ve read. The incredibly young, dynamic Reverend Osagyefo Sekou rejects social science double-talk in favor of poetic, visionary language we associate with the African griots of the past and present. He is the best the Hip-Hop generation has to offer: a politically engaged critic brave enough to critique and embrace black urban culture simultaneously. What gives his essays such clarity is the fact that he writes from the soul—his own soul. He rightly identifies the soul of modern America: the city. Read it and weep…and laugh, and sing, and shout, and learn what the New Millennium has in store."

— Robin D.G. Kelley, University of California-Los Angeles, and author of Yo’ Mama’s DisFunksational: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America

"Rev. Osagyefo Sekou’s book urbansouls is both a proscription and a prescription for the ills of modern society. This book not only asks the question Why but offers the solution How. It on the one hand condemns to death the systemic violence waged against youth and at the same time gives directions for the preparation of a remedy for the diseases that beset our environment. It is incisive, insightful, and inspiring."

— Willie F. Wilson, Senior Pastor, Union Temple Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.

"In order to transform America, urbansouls puts forth a new vision of humanity. Rev. Sekou weaves together observations from Hip-Hop culture, religion, and politics into a dynamic social analysis that speaks to contemporary issues challenging the African-American community."

— Manning Marable, author of Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

"At a time when African-American young people are preached at and locked up far more than they are listened to and talked with, urbansouls is a breath of fresh air. Rev. Sekou speaks truth and extends grace as he counts the costs of a society that offers poverty-level ‘McJobs,’ crushed hopes, and drugs. He finds beauty and spirit in rap and other forms of creative resistance, but refuses to pretend that Hip-Hop culture has stepped outside of the larger society’s avarice, homophobia, violence, and male supremacy. A profound call for what Sekou calls ‘love’ and ‘self-criticism,’ urbansouls heals wth fire."

— David Roediger, University of Kansas

Copyright

Copyright ©2017 by Osagyefo Sekou.

Contains material previously published in urbansouls (St. Louis: urban press, 2001). This revised edition also includes new material.

All rights reserved. For permission to reuse content, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], www.copyright.com.

Cover art: ©Shutterstock

ChalicePress.com

Print: 9780827238619

EPUB: 9780827238626 EPDF: 9780827238633

Contents

Critical Acclaim for First Edition of urbansouls

Copyright

Contents

foreword

spiritual not religious: hip-hop and the making of faith

to be young, gifted, and broke

songs of the city

hip-hop religion

prophets among them and they knew them not

About the Author

foreword

Several years ago I went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville to give a lecture. The University of Tennessee in Knoxville was the alma mater of my best friend, the late James Melvin Washington, so it was a great joy to speak on the hallowed ground of an intellectual