Despite the fact that the gospel hip hop culture is gaining ground and taking shape here in Uganda, it is facing a lot of criticisms from the Christian communities. Most of the traditional churches and even some contemporary ones are still glued to the traditional ways of doing music. We can not put the entire blame on the Christian community today because most of the people grow up with the indoctrination that gospel music is done in a particular format; outside that, it is deemed secular. Hip hop is branded as music for drug addicts, sex maniacs and killers.
Personally, I grew up knowing that gospel music is always slow paced, boring and with a vague beat. This partly scared me away from getting into terms with facts about salvation. I did not want to get born into such a boring music world. I never ever knew of any gospel hip hop song! Perhaps I heard some being played but branded them secular because of the wrong perception that I had. I attribute that to lack of popularity of this genre of music. Actually, the availability of hip hop music material is limited (for both local and international artists). Some of us who are desperate for it get it from the internet (few Ugandans know about this and most of them have limited access to internet). It is also unfortunate that foreign gospel hip hop artists rarely come to Uganda. We don’t have any Christian clubs here in Uganda. The only attempt we have made is to try to schedule gospel nights in a secular club. Unfortunately, that programme died out.
Today, some of us have embraced hip hop because we have gotten access and understood it. I am glad to say that our local church has embraced it too. We sing, dance and listen to it in church. The challenge we face is that we have to burry our passion for the genre when with people who are biased about it. For example, when doing a show in a church which shuns hip hop, we have to omit hip hop performances- what a challenge!
I have had a few encounters with those who oppose this genre of music; here-under is how I have defended my love for hip hop;
I usually stress the fact that the devil can not create anything; he simply manipulates what God creates. He has therefore manipulated hip hop. We need to take it back by force.
The other issue is that we need to understand culture. Imagine a person from England watching a traditional African performance in church. The performers are dressed with feathers on their heads, paintings and marks all over their bodies. To us, it may be absolutely ok, but to that English person, it may look like witchcraft being performed on stage. Why then should we have issues with chains, big T-shirts, buggy jeans, heavy beats and so on that hip /hop funs put on?
In a nutshell, the culture is making positive progress and yet struggling. We still hope and pray that Christians here buy it because it is such a big influence in the secular world.
