RMHH Blogs

While most of us are probably familiar with several French artists of Northern African origin, such as Freeman or Rim.K, their counterparts in the Maghreb itself are often ignored or, for lack of distribution or marketing, just overlooked. As far as Algerian Hip-Hop goes, two crews have played the role of dooropener for a bigger wave of artists that have come after them: MBS and Intik. Both

That was the subject of today's sermon. I didn't preach it but I presided because my Pastor is on vacation. However, Rev. Mercer brought a serious message based on Psalm 23. The past 5 Sundays have been great in general. As my Pastor has been away (not really away but unavailable), I have had to preside 4 out of the 5 Sundays and last Sunday because of a mix up, I preached. I had not prepared anything but I let the Spirit move and the Spirit did indeed move. This Sunday was no different. It was great. What is God to you? I will not go into a sermon here but just keep that thought in mind.

Last night, I saw my favorite hip-hop group of the past 12 years, the Roots. They culminated Temple's Homecoming celebration and the concert was sponsored in part, at least, by te Temple Black Alumni Association. If you'ver never seen the Roots perform and you're in some way affiliated with hip-hop, you need to see this crew. I haven't seen one of their shows in about 7 years but I was NOT disappointed. Words really can't even describe just how on point these guys are. It is great and amazing.

I think I'm kinda distracted because I'm watching the news but between the service today, the time change which gave me that extra needed hour, and the concert last night, I can honestly say I am rested and ready for work and class tomorrow. It was a good weekend.

There's not too much info I can give you about this amazing compilation of tracks from different crews from all over (sub-saharan) Africa including world famous Positive Black Soul (Senegal), Reggie Rockstone (Ghana) and Prophets of Da City (South Africa), among others. Instead, please follow the links to a press release and a review at the bottom of this post, as I haven't had this album for very

I was gonna post this a bit later, after a bigger post on Algerian hip-hop, since this album does not really fit into my little African series. But then I listened to it for a while, had a look around the net for info available and now I'm just dying to fill you in on this MC, producer and musician from Montpellier, France, son of a Lebanese mother and an Egyptian father, who goes by the name of

Tanzania has developed its own brand of hip-hop influenced music called Bongo Flava. The name goes back to the name of the country's capital, Dar-es-Salaam, which is commonly called Bongo. The Swahili word ubongo means brain or mind. One could say the capital is the head of the country. Or it might also mean that you need a brain to survive in the 3 million capital... This compilation gives you an

As announced, I'm going to hit you with a bunch of African albums. Some of them are full albums by one crew, others are compilations made by well-meaning organizations in Europe who try to introduce the non-Africans among us to this vast continent full of music. I'll have to admit that I don't know too much about all of them, but I just figured I'd pass on what I've got my hands on so you can go

My Spiritual Formation class at seminary is excellent. My class (which meets every Monday) is taught by a minister who did her undergrad work in psychology. The entire purpose of the class is for ministers to better understand themselves so that we can better serve our congregations, officers, and pastors. Today, we had a guest speaker, Rev. deJesus. Some of the stuff he talked on, I have to blog about here because it's important not just for ministers but for everyone.

He talked about the "shadow" vs. the "persona." I forget who coined the term "shadow" but it speaks to that part of us that is US. That part which we don't like and we want to hide from ourself and others. The shadow is that part that the Law (the Law of Moses) was created for. The murder, the stealing, the lusting, all of that is part of the shadow. The persona is the mask we put up. The persona is what everyone expects us to be. It's the "ideal" us. And many times the persona we put up wants to hide the "shadow." We don't want to acknowledge and deal with the shadow, we just want to deal with the persona and we want everyone else to deal with the persona also. The problem is the persona is not the real us, the shadow is. The shadow is that part of us that requires Christ in our life because we are lustful, murderous, thieving beings. The shadow says I am a sinner. And when we finally recognize the shadow, we can openly approach Christ and give Him our issues. Too many of us, ministers included, don't want to deal with our shadow. That shadow typically hides something deep within that we don't want to accept. Perhaps we're muderous because we're angry not at someone else, but at ourselves. Perhaps we're lustful because we have no outlet for our pleasure centers (this is not only about sex). Perhaps we're thieves because we are unsatisfied with the person that we are. In recognizing all of this, we all have shadows. We just have to find alternative ways to deal with our shadows other than sin.

That's just kind off a surface treatment of the surface treatment this guy gave us. He has no book, no tapes, nothing. He just preaches this type of message every Sunday from his pulpit in Cali. Yeah, I was like whoa!

Just some quick hits.

* "Be ye also ready..." (Matthew 24:44) Sunday, a guest preacher was supposed to be there as I preside over the service since my Pastor is on vacation for the month of October. When I did not see the guest preacher, I started mentally prepraing to preach. Sure enough, the preacher never showed. So, I had to bring a word without any preparation at all. Yeah. It was a word from Mark, about the Parable of the Four Soils.

* 5 years of iPod. I just got my Nano. best. thing. since. sliced. bread.

* Last, I'm reading Rest in the Storm. I'll post the author later. But it's really giving me insight into myself and how I need to be as a minister.

A few performances from artists who helped make Fondle 'Em Records one of the greatest hip-hop labels ever during its brief existence. If you are familiar with Siah and Yeshua da poED, then you know they left far too few recordings before Siah retired to apply his efforts to the disaster that is Middle East politics. Coincidentally, A Tribute to Ignorance (one of the best websites around, peep