I wanted to touch on the subject of Holy Hip Hop again. Mixing the world's music with "Gospel Music", which should be praise and worship should not be done in Church. I grew up in a Christian home but one of the things that we lacked was the spirit of discernment when it came to music. My parents listened to everything from Jimi Hendrix to Motown to The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. That same listening ear trickled down to me and my siblings. We listened to every form of music: classical, rock ,pop, hip hop, r&b, reggae, country and dance. I still struggle with listening to some stuff but it's a big problem when it is brought into the church.
I don't listen to hip hop and holy hip hop is no different. It is just the bootleg version of the original. It's very generic and extremely horrible to listen to. It's very disappointing that these "Christian" rap recording artist can not express what is suppose to be praise and worship in a manner that does not have influences from hip hop. There is nothing wrong with rapping but the problem is that these artist feel like it has to sound like hip hop in order for the youth to listen to and buy it.
Praise and worship is about ushering in the presence of God and giving Him all the glory and the praise. Instead, with holy hip hop it is about the love of self and expressing one's self instead of denying yourself and giving your self to Christ. Remember you must decrease in order for Him to increase. I read a interesting blog today from Elder G. Craig Lewis from Exministries about the same topic. Check it out to get a good prospective. http://gcraige.blogspot.com/2009/03/holy-hip-hop-bad-idea.html
