Frank A. Thomas, leading scholar in black preaching, calls “holy profanity,” “indicative of the fact that in African American culture, the lines between sacred and secular are often blurred, such that speech about God occurs in many religious and cultural forms and practices.” The power and rhetoric Thomas notices in the history of black preaching can also be applied to contemporary hip hop. I will expand on his provocative forms of “holy profanity,” and how telling the truth is “always relevant.” The concept of “keepin’ it real” is why hip hop has survived and thrived for so long, while other music styles have died out. This presentation will provide examples of how human struggle and the sacred are often connected, and how black preachers embody it in their sermons. This creates a rhetorically strong message that is directly connected to the authenticity of hip hop music. How do black preachers exercise authenticity in a time when spoken word poetry speaks to personal struggles that unite humanity, while intellectual and prudish rarest abstraction is often out of reach for many? The authenticity of both rappers and black preachers is so attractive because the central beliefs they convey are often shaped by actual struggle. How does Kendrick Lamar act out the strength of black preaching’s lively lamentations and jeremiads within his DAMN. album? Like hip hop, the rhetorical styles of black preachers can be so effective because they connect the obscenity of sacred texts to the obscenity of their own lives, which is also relevant to the church goer’s everyday life.
About the presenterSkyler Ellen Gibbon
I’m an English major with a Writing Studies concentration and an African American Studies minor. I have a passion for writing, especially poetry, and watching other people perform their writing. Through Millersville University, I became interested in where African American Studies, social justice, and rhetoric intersect. Come fall, I start my English MA degree. I am currently interning at Advoz (Restorative Justice) and completing a thesis on the rhetorical influence of black preaching within hip-hop.