When hip hop mogul Jay Z appeared at a Brooklyn Nets game with a medallion sporting the symbol of the Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earth, the media went into a frenzy trying to interpret what it meant to the one-time minority co-owner of the team. The New York Post controversial title, “Jay-Z bling from ‘whites are devil’ group” is certainly meant to gain readers and tarnish the image of the Brooklyn-born rapper. Of the several reprints of the story, nearly all include words such as “controversial” or “radical” in their title or bylines to suggest that Jay Z is supporting some type of fringe hate group.
The fact a person of Jay Z’s stature is seen representing what is considered a “radical” group by media outlets obsessed with caricatured representations of black men as “gangstas and buffoons” might shock the senses. For historians of the hip hop genre, Jay Z’s nominal association with the Five Percent nation is neither surprising nor shocking. As Felicia Miyakawa, professor of musicology has discussed in detail the early period of hip hop was inundated with Five Percent lingo, symbols, and icons. Record labels were packed hip hop groups either with direct affiliation or sympathetic to Five Percent teachings in their lyrics, sported Islamic kufis and fezes, and implored listeners to gain knowledge of self, avoid vices such as alcohol, pork and drugs, and criticized the policies of the Reagan-Bush years. But we know how that story ended: the mid-nineties witnessed the explosion of gangsta rap music in the mainstream media as “What’s up G?” went from meaning “God” to “gangsta”. Rappers hung up their kufis and Africa medallions for Los Angeles Raiders hats and gold chronic (marijuana) charms. Hip Hop artist who remained faithful to what would be labeled “conscious” hip hop (Common, Mos Def, Taalib Kweli) were moved to the margins as more funk-laden hardcore songs took over the airwaves and cable music video programming.
Into this musical sea change we find a young Jay-Z who like many East Coast rappers of the time reflected both the conscious Five Percent-inspired hip hop and then dominant West Coast hardcore rap scene. Jay Z’s meteoric rise can be attributed to his mastery of certain principles for hip hop success: simplified lyrical content and catchy musical production. However, Five Percent teachings still can be found in numerous instances beginning with his alternate moniker J-Hova (in reference to Jehovah) and his lyrics as he proclaims his divine status in numerous songs. An example of this is seen in the Usher collaboration Hot Tottie:
They call me King Hov, copy?
Big ballin’ is my hobby
So much so they think I’m down with the illuminati
My watch do illuminate
My pockets are tottie
But I’m God body, ya’ll better ask somebody
I was born a God
I made myself a king
Which means I downgraded to a human being
For the uninitiated these lyrics might simply be construed as boastful verses of his dominance of the hip hop industry. For a younger conspiracy minded generation of listeners without knowledge of the pivotal role of Five Percent doctrines in the genre, they are proof that Jay Z along with other successful black entertainers have pledged their allegiance to demonic forces. In his most recent musical offering Magna Carta Holy Grail, Jay Z muses on the criticism of his faith stance with “Heaven”. The song starts with a nod to Five Percent teachings and a swipe at conspiracy theorists,
Arm, leg, leg, arm, head - this is God body
Knowledge, wisdom, freedom, understanding - we just want our equality
Food, clothing, shelter - help a [n-word] find some peace
Happiness for a gangsta, ain't no love in the streets
Conspiracy theorist screaming Illuminati
They can't believe this much skill is in the human body
So what is to be made of Jay Z’s nominal Five Percenter allegiance? Is Jay Z secretly harboring anti-white hatred that he now feels comfortable expressing in public? I think that the obsession with the critique of whiteness found in the Five Percent Nation teachings and other black nationalist oriented religious traditions found in the African American community misses the point entirely. A question that is not often asked is, ‘what should the religious mythologies and theology of Black folk reflect if not a response to the experiences of…well…Black folk?’ The fact that after centuries of racial enslavement, brutal and oppressive Jim Crow segregation that some aspects of Black religiosity responded to it in theological and even in mythic terms should not be surprising. To equate whiteness and white society as the function of some demonic force hell-bent on oppressing and enslaving black folk is just as logical an conclusion as those who generations earlier believed that enslaved Africans due to their circumstances were the recipients of a divine curse (a la curse Of Ham). The more intriguing question to be asked given the historical circumstances of enslavement and racial violence during the late 19th and earlier 20th century is, ‘why didn’t the belief that the white man is the devil became more widespread in the African American religious worldview?’
Perhaps, it is a function of white privilege that African Americans and other non-whites can be subjected to yearly doses of white Jesus films and other re-enactments that are supposedly historical in nature that feature the whitest of actors playing biblical figures in order to reinforce the sacredness of whiteness. The fear and angst exposed towards the teachings of the Five Percent Nation is a cosmos in which whiteness is not revered.
The Five Percenters and its parent group the Nation of Islam offer is a normative religious cosmos for black existence. This is often overlooked in favors of criticizing the elements which are unpleasant to white ears. But lets us imagine that ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Jebusites, and all the other “ites” from the Hebrew Bible could be resurrected; would modern Jews abandon their faith in order not to offend their one-time foes? And even as the Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations have officially abandoned the charge of deicide against “the Jews” there still exists a sizable number of Christians who hold Jewish people responsible for the death of Christ. This gets at the crux of the matter, religion as a human phenomenon responds to the human experience with particularity rather than universalism. The ethical and moral universalism of religion is filtered through historical and cultural myths, rites and rituals that give meaning to the particular religious community. For most whites, black religion operates as what noted historian of religion Charles Long calls an opaque theology. The inability to comprehend a reflective inner life for Blacks which sacralizes its historical experiences leads to an obsession with the elements that openly criticize whiteness (i.e. white man is the devil). Therefore the traumatic slaveocracy and Jim Crow segregation that produced the “blue eyed devil” myth is ignored or marginalized and black religious groups are treated as irrational hate-mongerers.
Throughout the black religious cosmos, various traditions have removed whiteness from its hallowed perch. The most obvious is the Nation of Islam’s myth of Yacub, however, Black Hebrews have long identified whites in general (or Ashkenazi Jews in particular) as Edomites (the descendants of Esau, enemy of the Israelites), and Rastafarianism has long critiqued whiteness and western society as Babylon, the adversary of the saints of Jah. The sum total of these traditions is not there castigation of whiteness and western society, it larger role is to serve as compass to lead African Americans to what noted humanist theologian Anthony Pinn calls complex subjectivity. Complex subjectivity is an attempt to assert agency is a world filled with racial terror that began with the Middle Passage and carried through to the 20th century in the religious diversity of the urban Black America created by the Great Migration where religious traditions like the Five Percenters were born.
Also, the elevation of blackness from demonic in the western imagination to divine in the black religious cosmos has led to charges of reverse racism and black supremacy from media outlets and organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. Although, there has not been a history of racial violence committed against whites by these religious groups they continued get catalogued as the black “versions” of white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Christian Identity movements respectively. The rhetorical violence to whiteness as a symbol that Five Percenters, Black Hebrews, Rastafarians, and the Nation of Islam engage in is constantly offset by demands to be law-abiding citizens in its doctrinal teachings. To believe that black flesh can inhabit the divine, or can be the chosen of the divine is indeed a radical departure from the traditional western framework. At a time when an Oscar winner celebrating her dark skin is seen as a monumental feat, perhaps claiming to be a god in Black flesh is too much for the average American to handle.
Certainly, it would be more comforting for whites and many blacks to only hear messages of racial brotherhood and reconciliation and to overlook the demands and calls for cosmic justice that has been equally a part of the African American religious tradition. But as a human expression, religion is a chronicle of the interaction between human populations and societies at critical junctures in their historical and spiritual journeys and to censor black religious traditions for exposing some of the unpleasant episodes during this modern epoch would be violation of the very creed of the Five Percent nation: Freedom, Justice, and Equality.
The fact a person of Jay Z’s stature is seen representing what is considered a “radical” group by media outlets obsessed with caricatured representations of black men as “gangstas and buffoons” might shock the senses. For historians of the hip hop genre, Jay Z’s nominal association with the Five Percent nation is neither surprising nor shocking. As Felicia Miyakawa, professor of musicology has discussed in detail the early period of hip hop was inundated with Five Percent lingo, symbols, and icons. Record labels were packed hip hop groups either with direct affiliation or sympathetic to Five Percent teachings in their lyrics, sported Islamic kufis and fezes, and implored listeners to gain knowledge of self, avoid vices such as alcohol, pork and drugs, and criticized the policies of the Reagan-Bush years. But we know how that story ended: the mid-nineties witnessed the explosion of gangsta rap music in the mainstream media as “What’s up G?” went from meaning “God” to “gangsta”. Rappers hung up their kufis and Africa medallions for Los Angeles Raiders hats and gold chronic (marijuana) charms. Hip Hop artist who remained faithful to what would be labeled “conscious” hip hop (Common, Mos Def, Taalib Kweli) were moved to the margins as more funk-laden hardcore songs took over the airwaves and cable music video programming.
Into this musical sea change we find a young Jay-Z who like many East Coast rappers of the time reflected both the conscious Five Percent-inspired hip hop and then dominant West Coast hardcore rap scene. Jay Z’s meteoric rise can be attributed to his mastery of certain principles for hip hop success: simplified lyrical content and catchy musical production. However, Five Percent teachings still can be found in numerous instances beginning with his alternate moniker J-Hova (in reference to Jehovah) and his lyrics as he proclaims his divine status in numerous songs. An example of this is seen in the Usher collaboration Hot Tottie:
They call me King Hov, copy?
Big ballin’ is my hobby
So much so they think I’m down with the illuminati
My watch do illuminate
My pockets are tottie
But I’m God body, ya’ll better ask somebody
I was born a God
I made myself a king
Which means I downgraded to a human being
For the uninitiated these lyrics might simply be construed as boastful verses of his dominance of the hip hop industry. For a younger conspiracy minded generation of listeners without knowledge of the pivotal role of Five Percent doctrines in the genre, they are proof that Jay Z along with other successful black entertainers have pledged their allegiance to demonic forces. In his most recent musical offering Magna Carta Holy Grail, Jay Z muses on the criticism of his faith stance with “Heaven”. The song starts with a nod to Five Percent teachings and a swipe at conspiracy theorists,
Arm, leg, leg, arm, head - this is God body
Knowledge, wisdom, freedom, understanding - we just want our equality
Food, clothing, shelter - help a [n-word] find some peace
Happiness for a gangsta, ain't no love in the streets
Conspiracy theorist screaming Illuminati
They can't believe this much skill is in the human body
So what is to be made of Jay Z’s nominal Five Percenter allegiance? Is Jay Z secretly harboring anti-white hatred that he now feels comfortable expressing in public? I think that the obsession with the critique of whiteness found in the Five Percent Nation teachings and other black nationalist oriented religious traditions found in the African American community misses the point entirely. A question that is not often asked is, ‘what should the religious mythologies and theology of Black folk reflect if not a response to the experiences of…well…Black folk?’ The fact that after centuries of racial enslavement, brutal and oppressive Jim Crow segregation that some aspects of Black religiosity responded to it in theological and even in mythic terms should not be surprising. To equate whiteness and white society as the function of some demonic force hell-bent on oppressing and enslaving black folk is just as logical an conclusion as those who generations earlier believed that enslaved Africans due to their circumstances were the recipients of a divine curse (a la curse Of Ham). The more intriguing question to be asked given the historical circumstances of enslavement and racial violence during the late 19th and earlier 20th century is, ‘why didn’t the belief that the white man is the devil became more widespread in the African American religious worldview?’
Perhaps, it is a function of white privilege that African Americans and other non-whites can be subjected to yearly doses of white Jesus films and other re-enactments that are supposedly historical in nature that feature the whitest of actors playing biblical figures in order to reinforce the sacredness of whiteness. The fear and angst exposed towards the teachings of the Five Percent Nation is a cosmos in which whiteness is not revered.
The Five Percenters and its parent group the Nation of Islam offer is a normative religious cosmos for black existence. This is often overlooked in favors of criticizing the elements which are unpleasant to white ears. But lets us imagine that ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Jebusites, and all the other “ites” from the Hebrew Bible could be resurrected; would modern Jews abandon their faith in order not to offend their one-time foes? And even as the Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations have officially abandoned the charge of deicide against “the Jews” there still exists a sizable number of Christians who hold Jewish people responsible for the death of Christ. This gets at the crux of the matter, religion as a human phenomenon responds to the human experience with particularity rather than universalism. The ethical and moral universalism of religion is filtered through historical and cultural myths, rites and rituals that give meaning to the particular religious community. For most whites, black religion operates as what noted historian of religion Charles Long calls an opaque theology. The inability to comprehend a reflective inner life for Blacks which sacralizes its historical experiences leads to an obsession with the elements that openly criticize whiteness (i.e. white man is the devil). Therefore the traumatic slaveocracy and Jim Crow segregation that produced the “blue eyed devil” myth is ignored or marginalized and black religious groups are treated as irrational hate-mongerers.
Throughout the black religious cosmos, various traditions have removed whiteness from its hallowed perch. The most obvious is the Nation of Islam’s myth of Yacub, however, Black Hebrews have long identified whites in general (or Ashkenazi Jews in particular) as Edomites (the descendants of Esau, enemy of the Israelites), and Rastafarianism has long critiqued whiteness and western society as Babylon, the adversary of the saints of Jah. The sum total of these traditions is not there castigation of whiteness and western society, it larger role is to serve as compass to lead African Americans to what noted humanist theologian Anthony Pinn calls complex subjectivity. Complex subjectivity is an attempt to assert agency is a world filled with racial terror that began with the Middle Passage and carried through to the 20th century in the religious diversity of the urban Black America created by the Great Migration where religious traditions like the Five Percenters were born.
Also, the elevation of blackness from demonic in the western imagination to divine in the black religious cosmos has led to charges of reverse racism and black supremacy from media outlets and organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. Although, there has not been a history of racial violence committed against whites by these religious groups they continued get catalogued as the black “versions” of white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Christian Identity movements respectively. The rhetorical violence to whiteness as a symbol that Five Percenters, Black Hebrews, Rastafarians, and the Nation of Islam engage in is constantly offset by demands to be law-abiding citizens in its doctrinal teachings. To believe that black flesh can inhabit the divine, or can be the chosen of the divine is indeed a radical departure from the traditional western framework. At a time when an Oscar winner celebrating her dark skin is seen as a monumental feat, perhaps claiming to be a god in Black flesh is too much for the average American to handle.
Certainly, it would be more comforting for whites and many blacks to only hear messages of racial brotherhood and reconciliation and to overlook the demands and calls for cosmic justice that has been equally a part of the African American religious tradition. But as a human expression, religion is a chronicle of the interaction between human populations and societies at critical junctures in their historical and spiritual journeys and to censor black religious traditions for exposing some of the unpleasant episodes during this modern epoch would be violation of the very creed of the Five Percent nation: Freedom, Justice, and Equality.
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