Beyond the Four Walls

The Rising Ministry and Spirituality of Hip-Hop

Hip-hop is creating an expanding ministerial and spiritual movement that is changing the socio-historical landscape on a national and global level. From the streets of its birthplace in the South Bronx to the barrios of Colombia in South America; Hip-hop is helping to create sacred spaces that are providing purpose to our marginalized youth and young adult street populations. Beyond the Four Walls: The Rising Ministry and Spirituality of Hip-hop serves as both an autobiographical and ethnographical journey of my love and experiences with Hip-hop as a professor, youth minister and artist. I invite the reader to explore my outlook on Hip-hop, which reaches far beyond the scope of its music, commercialization, and hood life. Instead, it takes another look at the unprecedented impact that Hip-hop continues to have in both our secular and spiritual communities. Because of its ongoing commitment to community organizing, activism, social justice and education, Hip-hop is worthy to be called a 21st Century socio-political, theological and spiritual movement, akin to that of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Mohammed, Abraham, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and most notably in this book, Jesus Christ and Paul the Apostle.