“I have a theory,” says Michael Spencer, “that every successful rapper must make a CD or magazine photo picturing himself as a crucified Jesus.” Several months ago, the evidence supporting Spencer’s theory was the billboard for rap artist Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. Posters for the movie 
Get Rich or Die Tryin showed the gangsta rapper stripped to the waist stripped to the waist in a “crucifixion-like pose” , his arms outstretched, holding a microphone in one hand and a gun in the other.
Not to be outdone by such tame iconography, Grammy-award winning rapper Kanye West recently appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone posing as Jesus. 
The publicity stunt from the trying-way-to-hard-to-be-hip magazine followed the standard pattern: Do something that is sure to offend certain groups and when they respond claim that you never intended to offend anyone.
Whenever the geriatric Rolling Stone does something “edgy”, though, you can be sure that the trend has long since jumped the shark.
The rapper-crucifixion imagery is no exception.
One of the first to use the crucifixion pose on an album cover was San Francisco rapper Andre “Dre Dog” Nickatina for his 1993 album, The New Jim Jones. Nickatina’s raps are deservedly obscure but he can take comfort in knowing that his concept art was ripped off by Tupac Shakur.
In 1996, a month before he was shot to death on a street in Las Vegas, 1996, Shakur completed the multi-coloned album titled, Makaveli: The Don Killuminati: 7 Day Theory. The cover depicts a crucified Shakur (or his alter ego Makaveli) above a disclaimer that reads, “In no way is this portrait an expression of disrespect for Jesus Christ.”
Rapper Nasir “Nas” Jones also included a disclaimer at the beginning of his now infamous video Hate Me Now:
Since the first recorded crucifixion in 600 B.C. many thousands upon thousands of men and women have been crucified for their beliefs, their convictions, their love and their crimes...some have been guilty, some have been innocent. Some were nailed to a cross, others tortured in life. Nas believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and this video is in no way a depiction or portrayal of his life and death...
In the video, Nas and Sean “P.Diddy” Combs are crucified in a manner similar to Christ. The video is supposedly an allegorical representation of how Nas’ critics had crucified him for turning from “gansta rap” to the P.Diddy-style pop-rap. Although Nas wears a large gold cross around his neck while being crucified and “believes in the Lord Jesus Christ”, he refers to himself as “God’s Son” and has a song titled Nazareth Savage that includes the lines “Nail stabs a hand of the Nasirine/I carried the cross to help you afford that plasma screen” and “God'll forgive you bastards/Only if you repent to the Nazareth Savage.”
There is a temptation when viewing such provocative imagery to search for a deeper symbolic meaning. But as Sigmund Freud once said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Likewise in this trend, a crucifixion complex is just a crucifixion complex.
The absurdity of this persecution complex common to rap artists is exemplified in a release titled Musifixtion by a third-rate rapper named Killah Priest. “Yeah they wanna musify me man/Just like they crucified Christ/But this is music, they musified me.”
Picture me on a black cross
Black crows near both arms
Blood drippin' from both palms
And I'm squirmin' cuz the sore of my wounds are burnin'
Tossed from the wombs of virgins
I seen it all, medical room of surgeons
Read it all and the capy version
I look down, people spittin' and cursin'
Everybody quiet listin' to the sermon
Record Exec's dress like Romans
Pierce in my side, I'm goin through convulsions
Starin' straight to a jet black ocean
Three times I heard the rooster crow
Cats I used to know denied me but now use my flow
Used to feel my taste, my eyes searched the crowd for a familiar face
All bein' persecuted for purchasing the music
I'm like the works of a Judas
Or does it when I hurt my movement
While crooked lawyers gamble at the foot of my cross
My spirit leaves to the hoods of New York
I see streaks of lightning, angels with white wings
Above me flapping across the skys
They thought I died until one of them heard my cries
Just as Jesus returned from the dead, Priest also comes back to life with a unique twist: he’s “clutchin' two sub-machines” and laying his enemies low with “bullets the size of carrots.”
Obviously blinded by their bling, these rappers fail to see the irony in embracing a symbol of the ultimate humiliation while boasting of their superiority. Jesus said take up our cross and follow him. But I don’t think this is what He had in mind.
Other posts in this series:
1
well if the crown of thorns fits...
after all, Christ was a black man.
or does that make some people uncomfortable?
posted on 01.31.2006 6:42 AM2
And allt his time I was under the impression he was Jewish. I guess I didn't watch Dogma enough.
posted on 01.31.2006 6:59 AM3
Wow, Joe. You know a lot of obscure rap!
It says something, though, that when people want to egotistically wish to portray themselves as the persecuted messiah of whatever obscure genre they represent, they always turn to imagery of the cross--and despite their best efforts, the power of that image has never been diminished.
I used to have obscure philosophic conversations about the most powerful intellectual and cultural forces in the modern West. Usually it would come down to Christ and Socrates. Somewhat revealing that no rappers pose with a 40 of hemlock, no?
posted on 01.31.2006 7:16 AM4
Joe, you aren't by chance related to Shawn Carter, a.k.a. Jay-Z, are you? (Jay-Z is a.k.a. as Hova, which began as J-Hova, as in Jehovah)
Impressive research on this topic. I wonder how many inane bars of rhymes you had to wade through to salvage a Killah Priest joint. Incidentally, Killah Priest and, to some extent, his Wu-Tang cohorts overreached quite often. You can find rappers, album titles, song titles, rap crews, and production labels such as: "Prodigal Sunn", "B.I.B.L.E.", "Sunz of Man", "The Last Shall Be First", "Proverbs Music", "Maccabees", and "View from Masada".
Much of the confused use of Biblical (and some Hebrew/Jewish) imagery in hip-hop is a result of the poor theology mixed into much of black culture today.
posted on 01.31.2006 8:51 AM5
Why would a "composer" of doggerel accompanied by elevator music be expected to know anything about theology?
posted on 01.31.2006 8:58 AM6
after all, Christ was a black man.
How do you know he was a man, you sexist pig.
posted on 01.31.2006 9:02 AM7
I love the expression "jumped the shark". It neatly fills a linguistic that "passe" doesn't quite cover.
Gotta agree with Joe on his assessment of Rolling Stone. It never was all that great, but it really tanked about the same time the music did. Guess I'm showing my age. ;-)
posted on 01.31.2006 10:21 AM8
The word "need" should have followed "linguistic"; this is doubly ironic since I teach English.
posted on 01.31.2006 10:23 AM9
Gotta agree with Joe on his assessment of Rolling Stone. It never was all that great, but it really tanked about the same time the music did. Guess I'm showing my age. ;-)
One of the rare times I agree with Rob Ryan. Guess that means I'm getting old too.
posted on 01.31.2006 10:51 AM10
>>Why would a "composer" of doggerel accompanied by elevator music be expected to know anything about theology?
Everyone is expected to know theology.
Hip hop can be a wonderful art; the potential is there. In terms of sheer volume of words, it has no musical equal. Imagine if the MC had something of beauty to say.
Good thing Mars Ill is out there. Check them out.
11
Yeah, when I saw Kanye's cover the first thing I thought of was Tupac's album and the video that followed. It was released right after he died and the whole video was him (or Makaveli) up on a cross with a semi-resurrection scene at the end.
The record label continued to release Makaveli songs for awhile, which along with the video, fueled speculation that Tupac was still alive somewhere.
The best response I heard to the whole Rolling Stone cover was from William Donohue of the Catholic League. He said: "This kind of thing has become commonplace. It’s one thing to rip off Catholic iconography. It’s quite another to exploit a poor soul like Kanye West...Anyone who is this morally and mentally challenged deserves our sympathy, not our derision."
Take note rappers - that is how you "talk smack."
posted on 01.31.2006 12:18 PM12
What's incredible is that liberals like Tommythecat actually believe that because we are Christian and conservative we might be uncomfortable with Christ being black. Perhaps Tommy didn't hear that we conservatives got the memo that blacks are cool and that if Christ is black he is even cooler.
A liberal pastor wrote to our local paper and suggested that George Bush didn't care about the people who have died in Iraq, because the pastor didn't see any sorrow coming from Bush during a recent speech. Aside from basing such a monstrous allegation purely on observing the President's expression, it doesn't occur to this man that he is participating in typical liberal groupthink: conservatives don't care about people, not like us liberals. In order to be a liberal, you need to believe that conservatives are racist, unfeeling monsters. There can't be any thoughtful reasons for opposing liberalism.
posted on 01.31.2006 2:33 PM13
Appropriating/desecrating/making fun of Christian imagery is sooo 20th century. If Rolling Stone and various artists want to be truly edgy and dangerous, they should start playing around with Islamic iconography.
posted on 01.31.2006 4:50 PM14
I like ebbis' idea. What about Rolling Stone putting some Danish cartoons on their cover? Maybe a drawing of Muhammad taking flight lessons?
posted on 01.31.2006 6:16 PM15
Yeah, Rolling Stone is about as relevant as any other geriatric baby-boomer institution of pop culture.
In the back of my mind I think that the whole rapper as Jesus trend was born out of that condescending sort of liberal racism. I think the people behind Rolling Stone and MTV expect and enjoy seeing black people conform to standards of behavior that they wouldn't tolerate from white people. Soundgarden's "Jesus Christ Pose" was banned from MTV, and Nirvana only got away with "Heart Shaped Box" because it was an overt dig at the Catholic Church. It fit their agenda, just like the idea of blacks suffering for white people's sins fits their agenda now.
posted on 01.31.2006 7:30 PM16
Does it strike anyone as ironic that Islam is outraged by a comic image of Mohamad in a European paper at the same time we smirk at the misuse of Christ's imagary?
The European union has been quick to apologize for the insensitivity of the cartoonist. Muslims were out in the streets burning flags and threatening violence.
I am not suggesting temper tantrums, but has the West interpreted our silence as permission? Or more to the point are we so beaten down by the ACLU types that we dare not show disapproval? Why are christian emblems not treated with the same respect as Islam or Judiasm?
posted on 01.31.2006 8:25 PM17
Nathan:
This is America. People will say and do things that you and I disagree with. We are free to respond we wish. Do you think I as a liberal, enjoy seeing rich, misogynistic, violence-adoring young black men play the martyred messiah? I assure you I do not. I do not buy the records, and I reach for the remote when the ridiculous videos of opulent houses filled with fancy cars, sluts, and bling come on the television.
Instead of being blaming liberals and playing the victim, you should cancel subscriptions, write the editors, etc. I vote with my wallet, and I oppose with my pen. Grousing on a blog and blaming your political opponents doesn't cut it.
That said, I fully support your right to air your ridiculous liberal agenda ideas.
posted on 02.01.2006 7:16 AM18
Someone recently remarked that Christian activist groups have staged the most ingenious and effective attack yet on the pro-gay-sex movie, "Brokeback Mountain". They ignored it. No free publicity; maybe that's why they're getting an Oscar - that should do something to boost DVD sales at least.
Seriously, as a Catholic Christian I get offended by this stuff, but we are taught to do reparation for the sins of others as well as penance for our own sins. For example, someone takes the Lord's name in vain and he whisper a short prayer like "My Jesus I love thee save souls." Or some other prayer praising God.
We know that although Christ is truly risen and that he reign in resurrected glory in eternity, he is still suffering on earth through the sufferings of the Church (Col. 1:24). So we can expect to see the most egregious examples of blasphemy directed toward Jesus probably until the end of time. That expectation doesn't mean we're indifferent or preclude activism and protest in any way. But if we make reparation are first response we can supernaturalize the situation and direct us toward prayers for conversion.
posted on 02.04.2006 3:07 PM