Young Hip-hop Artist Weaves Adventist Doctrines into His Music

Spectrum Website
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24-year-old hip-hop musician Akande Jarumi did not have a typical, North American Adventist upbringing. Because he grew up in a military family, his family was relocated often for work. He spent several years of his childhood living abroad in military community in Germany, where Jarumi did not have an opportunity to study at Adventist schools, attend Bible conferences, or participate in Adventist camp meetings. In fact, he had very little interaction with Adventists outside of his family until his family moved to Arizona when he was 15-years-old.

I corresponded with Jarumi about his Adventist upbringing, and how his struggles with substance abuse and violence led him to a recommitment to his Adventist faith.

Even though he had “grown up Adventist,” Jarumi did not give religion very much thought.

“I always acknowledge that there was a Creator, but I never really considered Him to be an integral part of my life,” Jarumi told me. “I had assumed that being Adventist had secured my salvation, as crazy as that sounds.”

Upon his return to the United States, Jarumi began attending a public high school. He started to experiment with rap music and tried to emulate the lifestyle that often associated with that genre of music. He began to get into fights at school, to hang around some known gang members, and to use drugs. Jarumi actively sought out the “baddest/coolest kids” in his classes.

After getting involved in a particularly nasty fight that left him with a black eye and gashed eyebrow, Jarumi’s parents realized it was time for a change. They sent him to Texas to attend Valley Grande Adventist Academy for his junior year of high school. At first, the move to VGAA was a positive one.

“Everyone, for the most part, believed like I did,” said Jarumi. “[They were] raised like I [was], and understood the struggles and cultural battles that I had faced. It was refreshing.”

But soon Jarumi fell back into his old ways. He began selling drugs out of the boys’ dormitory and got into another fight. He threatened to beat up a girl over a quarrel about drug use. Eventually, Jarumi was called into the principal’s office and expelled.

In the wake of his expulsion, Jarumi’s parents decided to send him to Thunderbird Adventist Academy in Arizona. Jarumi was resistant to forming friendships at Thunrderbird, but as his senior year progressed, he started making a few positive changes. He worked as a dormitory resident assistant and served as senior class president. He continued to party from time to time, and to smoke marijuana, he says, but with less frequency.

Near the end of the school year Jarumi had a turning point. David Solomon Sr. came to Thunderbird to speak for week of prayer and his words had a profound impact on Jarumi.

“I remember his speech moved me in a way that I hadn't felt before,” Jarumi says. “I felt like God was talking to me and I knew what I had to do. I finally surrendered my life to Christ fully for the first time and was baptized.”

Despite Jarumi’s commitment to Christ, it was not a perfect journey after his baptism. He continued to struggle with substance abuse as he pursued an artistic venture as a rapper.

“It was mid-2011 where God spoke to me and pulled back the layers of denial, selfishness and failure that was my current state of mind. [There was a] moment [when] I was reading Steps to Christ and took all of the paraphernalia related to the music I was doing and threw it in the trash. I deleted every social media account and erased every shred of that life. It was radical and people around me didn't understand it but it was definitely [what I] needed.”

That moment proved pivotal for Jarumi. He transitioned from making music for himself to making music overtly focused on religious themes. He transitioned artistically from rap to hip-hop, and worked Seventh-day Adventist beliefs into his lyrics--the state of the dead, a literal six-day creation, and the Holy Trinity, to name a few.

In "I'm Gone," Jarumi sings about Adventism's understanding of death:

“Under the belief that I'll get enough sleep when I die

My faith is in Christ, I'll only sleep until I rise.”

In “Trinity” he sings about Christ’s sacrifice:

“No longer I bear the character of a sinful man

Cleansed by the blood of the Lamb

On my forehead written the words of His truth

Excuse the excuses, I can not be content with foolish thoughts

I acknowledge the King, and at a high price my soul was bought

Rather abundant grace was brought to my door and dropped off

Free of charge ...”

Since his emergence as an Adventist hip-hop artist in 2011, Jarumi has been featured on websites like UndergroundHipHop and Rapzilla. He has had more than 175 thousand plays of his music and over 15 thousand downloads. His music is available for free online at www.davisabsolute.com.

“I always attempt to make sure the core of what I'm doing is rooted in Christ and experiences that I've personally had with Him,” says Jarumi. “My walk with Christ is hugely important and I want to make sure that it's shown through [the music] I put out.”

Jarumi performs his music live a couple of times a month in various music venues and for several Christian denominations. He is currently working on recording his first EP. When he’s not singing, Jarumi works for Young Adult Life, a young adult ministry that operates within the North American Division. He also works at Advent Analog, where he helps small Christian companies develop their brand identity.

Rachel Logan is a writing intern for SpectrumMagazine.org.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://spectrummagazine.org/node/6986
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Thank you, Rachel, for bringing our attention to this artist. His story inspires me to be patient and encouraging to others even if the outward appearance is one of disinterest or rebellion. I hope to hear AJ’s music in the sanctuary some day soon.

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Good for you, Jarumi…love God and share the talent that He has given you to bless others!

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He started to experiment with rap music and tried to emulate the lifestyle that often associated with that genre of music. He began to get into fights at school, to hang around some known gang members, and to use drugs.

The author isn’t saying, here, “that the lifestyle…often associated with” rap music is one of fighting in school, being enticed by gangs, and drug use, is she?

I ask because, if she is:

a) These are threadbare stereotypes.

b) These activities are associated with virtually every Western youth scene of the last sixty years. For example, these are foregrounded in the 1955 film, Blackboard Jungle, whose release predates the ascendance of hip-hop by thirty years.

c) Tying these anti-social outcomes to hip-hop little explains the young man’s crass behavior at the Adventist boarding schools he attended…unless we are to believe that the school was pumping Wu-Tang and Lil Wayne through the PA system all day.

HA

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Hey Harry!

Thanks for your reply. Being that this story is about me I figured I could shed a little bit more light on it.

I’m not sure if you’re super familiar with the hip hop scene as it currently is, or how it has been for the last 10 - 15 years. I’ve been pretty plugged in and I think it’s safe to say that the lifestyle portrayed in the artform definitely has weight on the actions of young teens and the ideas that they adopt. When you’re absent of faith, a relationship with God, a strong relationship with your peers, and a weak sense of identity, you attempt to find belonging and purpose. Rap is a common tying thread in gang communities as well as gangless communities, but the outcome is usually the same.

Personally, I knew several people who were just like me and attempting to emulate the lifestyle they saw and constantly pumped into their mind. If we were to look at the film you mentioned “Blackboard Jungle” and compare it with the teen/youth violence rates from that time to now there would be an ALARMING growth. I talk with community leaders daily and the dire need there is for mentorship, leadership, strong and healthy communities, and positive music that focuses healthy decision making. Christian music obviously has it’s home there as well.

I can honestly say that the image I was attempting to portray through my actions had many contributing factors, but the strong identification I found in gangster rap was one of the primary reasons I even pursued it. If I didn’t have the impression that my worth was determined by the drugs I could sell or the people I could beat up I may have found it somewhere else or in something else. In the same way that rock music, pop music, country music, etc., shapes it’s listeners, gangster rap does the same.

Also my journey started long before ever attending a Adventist academy, which the author noted very clearly. Valley Grande Adventist Academy and Thunderbird Academy were great schools, but they didn’t need to play Wu-Tang Clan (kind of dated yourself there lol) or Lil Wayne for me to pump it into my brain on a daily basis. I had an iPod and a computer, I figured it out!

Thanks for your response though! I hope this gives some light on the topics you brought up.

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Thanks, davisabsolute.

I appreciate the response, and the detail of it.

Also, via just the smallest amount of detail about me, I’ve been writing and speaking professionally about hip-hop for over 25 years. I know, personally and/or through my work, most of the people who have had any significant or lasting effect on the culture. Many people consider me the first writer to exclusively concern myself with the details of the form, and to write compellingly about them. I consider myself, though, merely a student of the culture.

As opposed to Wu-Tang Clan, I could have said Drake, ASAP Rocky, or Rae Sremmurd. However, I was counting on this being read by people who don’t know anything about the culture, but who may have heard of the artists I named. Also, I wanted to pick a crew whose music is, arguably, associated with the themes the essay decried. Finally, as opposed to merely dating myself, because of the depth of my experience, I can, and tend to, reach widely for metaphors that apply hip-hop. From a certain aesthetic level, it’s all contemporary to me.

I appreciate the way that you have incorporated hip-hop into what appears to be a new relationship with God. I hope, and trust that this works for your salvation. I am also thankful that it appears you have walked away from self-negating behaviors to which you originally clung.

My argument is with the association of rap with these behaviors, either exclusively or predominantly. Terms like ““gangster rap,”” which I consider a racial slur—though not from you—are semantic expressions of this thinking.

Why? Because all cultures make music about the power of men over other men, over women, over their enemies, or over territory, through violence or other means. Much of European opera is expressly about these themes, as is the hit show Game of Thrones. Neither of the latter are referred to as ““gangster”” anything.

It is only for the art of Black people that such delimiters are retained. In my impression, the writer of the essay about you was using a common, more subtly applied set of them. My point was to note that to do so is incoherent, given what young people actually use their bodies and minds to filter, regardless of the music they like.

HA

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Ah! Well we can a bit more of an interesting conversation in that case! I apologize for my slight retort that maybe you were disconnected/disjointed from the culture. Often times I see attacks or stereotypes on the culture or ideas that are reinforced from people within the church, who in many cases, have no idea how the culture has progressed or what it looks like today.

As a side note I’m not one to categorize or demonize hip hop culture in it’s entirety. There is a richness of intellectual content and activist spirit that has existed, and truly founded hip hop and rap from the origins of it in Harlem. I’d be remiss to not mention Shock G, DJ Kool Herc, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Digable Planets, Public Enemy, Gangstarr, and the number of other artists that not only contributed powerful and enriching content from the start. If I can make anything clear it is that I love hip hop and rap music and recognize that it is one of the most powerful ministry tools within the realm of music to shape lives for the cause of Christ.

I wouldn’t disagree that all cultures make reference to the things you mentioned - “he power of men over other men, over women, over their enemies, or over territory, through violence or other means”. What I would contend however is that while culturally those things exist, the context of the storytelling can not be directly related to the listener in most cases. What I mean by that is the consumer, since the birth of the art, was living the consequence of the storyteller. It’s unlikely the person watching G.O.T. can relate their life in anyway to the actors playing it out. Rap music was made to reflect the environment of the person conveying it. What comes out is the result of a lot of things but I think the consequence can be consistently seen.

Would it be a racial slur to call artists such as Chief Keef, Migos, Lil Durk, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, etc., gangster rappers? At the same token I can identify artists like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Lupe Fiasco, Pharoahe Monch, Blu, etc. conscious rappers? Kendrick Lamar talks about how gang life has affected him and even uses graphic language and vulgarity but the content, intent, and what is encouraged, even outside of the ability of the lyricist, is clearly vastly different. Those same listeners, given the same circumstance, may make and have made different life decisions based on the message that they received.

A good friend of mine Demarco (Gemstones aka Gemini formerly signed to Lupe’s FNF) talked with me about why he makes the music that he makes and the current state of his city, Chicago. The simple fact is that when a 17 year old gang captain gets a clique together to go shoot someone, they aren’t bumping Express Yourself, they’re bumping F The Police.

Rap music is a tool that is so powerful in this way. It’s a good question though, One of my favorite lyricists Papoose can be quoted saying “Instead of watching us they should’ve watched Ground Zero/ Schwarzneggar kill in them movies but he a hero/”. While the culture exists across nearly every form of media with the things you described, only in hip hop does reality meet the listener where they’re at. Again, that’s why I believe it is the most powerful music in existence.

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Thanks, davisabsolute.

You said:

Ah! Well we can a bit more of an interesting conversation in that case! I apologize for my slight retort that maybe you were disconnected/disjointed from the culture. Often times I see attacks or stereotypes on the culture or ideas that are reinforced from people within the church, who in many cases, have no idea how the culture has progressed or what it looks like today.

In response:

I accept that. However, if you’ll look again and think about them, closely, my three criticisms were not the ones that people who are disconnected from the culture tend to make.

You said:

As a side note I’m not one to categorize or demonize hip hop culture in it’s entirety. There is a richness of intellectual content and activist spirit that has existed, and truly founded hip hop and rap from the origins of it in Harlem. I’d be remiss to not mention Shock G, DJ Kool Herc, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Digable Planets, Public Enemy, Gangstarr, and the number of other artists that not only contributed powerful and enriching content from the start. If I can make anything clear it is that I love hip hop and rap music and recognize that it is one of the most powerful ministry tools within the realm of music to shape lives for the cause of Christ.

In response:

I’ll accept that.

You said:

I wouldn’t disagree that all cultures make reference to the things you mentioned - “he power of men over other men, over women, over their enemies, or over territory, through violence or other means”. What I would contend however is that while culturally those things exist, the context of the storytelling can not be directly related to the listener in most cases. What I mean by that is the consumer, since the birth of the art, was living the consequence of the storyteller. It’s unlikely the person watching G.O.T. can relate their life in anyway to the actors playing it out. Rap music was made to reflect the environment of the person conveying it. What comes out is the result of a lot of things but I think the consequence can be consistently seen.

In response:

Thanks.

If you’re saying that people who listen to hip-hop music are more likely to be living lives that narratively match its content than those people who listen to other styles of aggressive art, well, it’s arguable, but it’s also disputable.

Often, the incidents rappers describe are imaginary, or exaggerated for effect. Also, hip-hop’s audience is now very wide and phenomenologically diverse. It’s hard, as a result, to say if it’s more likely that someone, at random, who hears a given hip-hop narrative considers it true-to-life.

Compared to Game of Thrones? Well, certainly, yes…because GoT is a medieval fantasy more akin to the similarly fictional The Lord of the Rings. None of it ever happened, and much of it never could.

These counter-arguments, though, are askew of my point: Are you saying that no other form of music or art with aggressive content has been made, or is being made, in a quasi-documentary fashion, akin to hip-hop? I doubt that is the case, or verifiable.

Am I saying, if there is, no one is calling them “gangsta [blank]”? Absolutely; not unless the makers are non-white.

It’s only when Black young males engage in this kind of speech that the label “gangster” is affixed to it. White people, saying the same things, do not suffer the same fate.

You said:

Would it be a racial slur to call artists such as Chief Keef, Migos, Lil Durk, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, etc., gangster rappers?

In response:

Yes: It is a racial slur if white people, in other forms of art, professing the same ideals, are not labeled the same way.

No one has ever called Martin Scorcese a “gangsta director,” even though a lot of the characters in his films are actual gangsters.

This language minimizes and limits the artistic statements of Black people by describing them reductively. Doing this is part and parcel of running a racist enterprise.

You said:

At the same token I can identify artists like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Lupe Fiasco, Pharoahe Monch, Blu, etc. conscious rappers?

In response:

You would have to define the term “conscious,” as it pertains to hip-hop.

You said:

Kendrick Lamar talks about how gang life has affected him and even uses graphic language and vulgarity but the content, intent, and what is encouraged, even outside of the ability of the lyricist, is clearly vastly different. Those same listeners, given the same circumstance, may make and have made different life decisions based on the message that they received.

In response:

Is there “conscious opera,” or are there “conscious movies”?

You said:

A good friend of mine Demarco (Gemstones aka Gemini formerly signed to Lupe’s FNF) talked with me about why he makes the music that he makes and the current state of his city, Chicago. The simple fact is that when a 17 year old gang captain gets a clique together to go shoot someone, they aren’t bumping Express Yourself, they’re bumping F The Police.

In response:

A good friend of mine who co-wrote “F*** Tha Police”—Ice Cube—once told me that he was sitting outside of a movie theater, in his ride, listening to music. Some gangbangers came up to him, pointed out a rival nearby that they wanted to jack, and asked him if he would bump the Stop The Violence Movement’s “Self-Destruction” while they beat him down.

In other words, all you’re talking about is ambience. People use, and play, music in all kinds of contexts, to create all kinds of moods and mind states.

Take a look at this scene. It’s from the classic, 1979 film, Apocalypse Now:

In it, soldiers rain more hell on a Vietnamese village than has been enacted on all hip-hop records, combined, since “Rapper’s Delight." They do this to “Ride of the Valkyries,” by Richard Strauss, from his cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen.

So, is this now “gangsta classical”?

Further, bringing back your argument about the association of music with its audience, are the prerogatives of soldiers less closely expressed in “Valkyries” than those of young Black men are in “F*** Tha Police”? In other words, which is closer to its audience and their goals, in content? How would one argue this, verifiably, especially given this cinematic example?

Also, still, whatever your response, this is a side argument. My point is that “Valkyries” is not “gangsta ring,” “gangsta opera,” or “gangsta" anything, and never will be, even despite its associative and lyrical preoccupation with violence.

You said:

Rap music is a tool that is so powerful in this way. It’s a good question though, One of my favorite lyricists Papoose can be quoted saying “Instead of watching us they should’ve watched Ground Zero/ Schwarzneggar kill in them movies but he a hero/”. While the culture exists across nearly every form of media with the things you described, only in hip hop does reality meet the listener where they’re at. Again, that’s why I believe it is the most powerful music in existence.

In response:

This may be true. It would have to be proven that the music of Masai warriors, for example, aren’t as congruent with their war-like goals as rap is with its audience’s.

However, whether it is, or not, is, again, irrelevant to my main point, which is this:

Terms like “gangsta rap,” or like, one heard a lot, here, on Spectrum, “Black-on-Black crime,” are slurs. They are slurs because they pretend to say something true or unique about non-white people, while doing neither.

HA

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