Tom Lynch

A handful of attendees shuffle to the front rows of a North Park University auditorium, a room haunted with empty chairs. The daylight beams through the many windows, as it's only early afternoon, the start to a long day. More people are to come, everyone's assured. It feels, and looks, a bit like church.

However, it's only the "2nd Annual Hip-Hop Symposium," as the screen projector hanging over the stage reads, titled "Hip-Hop: A Voice for Justice." A table rests on the stage, under the screen, with multiple microphones primed for the panel discussion to come. Towards the back, juice, soda and snacks, as well as two tables of religious literature revolving around pop culture--"The Gospel According to Tony Soprano," "Faith, Hope, and U2," and others. After several hip-hop artists--including Corey Red and Precise, both from New York-- freestyle about Jesus Christ for the growing crowd, Rev. Phil Jackson, the man behind Lawndale's new hip-hop church, is introduced by the emcee as "My man--the hip-hop pastor of Chicago."

The reverend takes the mic. "Everybody cool?" he asks, donning a relaxed pair of jeans and a 1968 Olympic Games T-shirt he looks like he's had for years. He lectures a bit about the history of hip-hop, the terrors of economic expansion in New York, and a bit about himself, like his experiences at the once massive Fresh Fest. "It was my B.C. days, you know, so I was all high. When Run DMC came on stage it was like, damn, we finna die? That be God?" The crowd laughs as the Reverend mildly jokes, but his point is clear. Plus, with the expanding religious aspect of hip-hop these days--with artists like Kanye West winning Grammys for songs with titles like "Jesus Walks"--it all seems quite timely. Jackson talks of sending and receiving--that the hip-hop artist is sending his message and receiving from the audience--and that's why hip-hop has lasted for decades.

He cues the projector screen and plays an old Slick Rick video, "Children's Story," a tale about a boy who takes "the wrong path" down a road of drugs and violence and ends up dead. It's a warning to all the kids of hip-hop, to reject the bad and embrace the good. "Hip-hop's gift is storytelling," says Jackson. "If you have a tight MC, an MC spitting about justice, that will bring you into the story. It'll drop the truth on you. You'll be like `Damn, I never saw it that way.' Storytelling is the key to real MCs."

(2005-03-22)

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