Street Scriptures: Between God and Hip-Hop

This book explores an important aspect of hip-hop that is rarely considered: its deep entanglement with spiritual life.

The world of hip-hop is saturated with religion, but rarely is that element given serious consideration. In Street Scriptures, Alejandro Nava focuses our attention on this aspect of the music and culture in a fresh way, combining his profound love of hip-hop, his passion for racial and social justice, and his deep theological knowledge. Street Scriptures offers a refreshingly earnest and beautifully written journey through hip-hop’s deep entanglement with the sacred.

Nava reveals a largely unheard religious heartbeat in hip-hop, exploring crosscurrents of the sacred and profane in rap, reggaeton, and Latinx hip-hop today. Ranging from Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Lauryn Hill, Cardi B, and Bad Bunny to St. Augustine and William James, Nava examines the ethical-political, mystical-prophetic, and theological qualities in hip-hop, probing the pure sonic and aesthetic signatures of music, while also diving deep into the voices that invoke the spirit of protest. The result is nothing short of a new liberation theology for our time, what Nava calls a “street theology.”

Alejandro Nava is professor of religious studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author of The Mystical and Prophetic Thought of Simone Weil and Gustavo Gutiérrez, Wonder and Exile in the New World, and In Search of Soul. He has discussed hip-hop and religion on NPR, Fox News, HuffPost Live, and MSNBC, among other outlets.