Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. received critical acclaim from various quarters of the listening public. Overall, the album continues an odyssey that began with his previous albums in which Lamar explores the complexities of black life. In his previous albums, Lamar often reflected on the suffering of those around him in Compton and his own struggles with fame. A consistent theme throughout his work has been using biblical imagery and metaphors to illuminates the challenges for black folk struggling with violence, poverty, and despair. There is a consistent interest in the religious and spiritual dimensions of Kendrick Lamar’s life and music. Journalists and academics have delved into the intricacies of his complex mix of sacred and secular themes found in his musical body of work. One can read stories concerning the number of times Kendrick Lamar has been baptized, to more substantive considerations of him as a prophetic voice in current society there is almost insatiable demand to understand the inner thoughts of the rapper.
With the release of DAMN., journalists and bloggers celebrated Kendrick’s continued evolution as an artist; however, the track “YAH.” caused a brief pause as listeners attempted to decode what Lamar meant with the declaration, “I’m not a politician, I’m not ‘bout a religion.” Had he lost his faith? Was he no longer Christian? Then he declared, “I’m an Israelite. Don’t call me Black no more.” Additionally, on the track, “FEAR.” Lamar included a voicemail sample of his cousin Carl Duckworth explaining to Kendrick that his sense of despair resulted from divine curses upon black people based on his interpretation of passages from the Bible. Taken together these two tracks unleashed a flurry of speculation as to what the famed rapper now believed about God, his faith, and his own racial identity.
In this chapter, I will discuss the implications of Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics, which focus on the centrality of black suffering and how his inclusion of Hebrew Israelite doctrines offers an additional layer of symbolism and meaning to that suffering. By interpreting black suffering from the Hebrew Israelite worldview, Lamar’s lyrics and samples offer opportunity to discuss his use of religious imagery as a vocabulary for interpreting the current state of black life. I contend that in his rejection of categories of ‘black’ and “religion”; the Israelite declaration and references to Deuteronomy 28 are best understood as a vocabulary of suffering, meaning that his lyrics and samples allow Kendrick to present a framework to understand the black condition not afforded to him by his traditional Christian beliefs. Finally, I will argue that the Hebrew Israelite beliefs and symbols found in DAMN., are an example of sampling and synthesis rather than an evolution of Kendrick Lamar’s religious identity from one discrete religious identity into another (i.e., Christian to Hebrew Israelite). I argue that this album represents a synthesis of vocabularies of suffering.
To achieve these objectives, I will first provide a brief overview of the Hebrew Israelite beliefs and its presence in mainstream hip-hop to provide context for the entry of Kendrick Lamar’s voice as a possible ‘representative’ of this faith tradition. Second, I will offer a summary of Lamar’s religious worldview leading to the release of DAMN. as context to how his “Hebrew Israelite turn” figures into the larger religious worldview that he espouses in relation to black suffering. These introductory discussions provide the necessary background for analyzing Lamar’s Israelite references and declarations as an additional vocabulary to his interpretation of the black existential condition.
At the center of speculation regarding Kendrick’s ‘Israelite declaration’ was a desire to explain his relationship to the Hebrew Israelite movement. Hebrew Israelites are African Americans who believe that they are genealogically descendants of the biblical tribes of Israel. This belief is supported by an interpretation of precolonial African history that identifies the presence of Hebraic or Israelite-related African ethnic groups throughout Africa with an emphasis on West Africa prior to the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. Equally important, however, is the intricate biblical exegesis on Deuteronomy 28, which Hebrew Israelites use to mythologize the historical kernels of their belief through an assertion that the biblical passage foretells the enslavement and forced migration of their West African Israelite ancestors to the western hemisphere.1 Although, Hebrew Israelites are a “diverse collection of congregations and groups there are underlying beliefs that bind this fragmented religious tradition together as a cohesive belief system.”2 That commonality represented in the dual beliefs of a pre-enslavement West African Hebrew ancestry and divine punishment in the form of enslavement in the New World for disobedience to God for breaking biblical laws in the indeterminate past.
To be more specific we can identify the sources of Kendrick’s Hebrew Israelite references to the group Israel United in Christ (IUIC) an organization whose origins lie with an older Israelite group known as the Israeli School of Universal Practical Thought (UPK). According to oral accounts, the UPK was founded in 1969 by a figure known as Abba Bivens in Harlem, New York, who is believed to have his roots in the Commandment Keepers, a group of Black Jews in Harlem during the early twentieth century.3 The UPK and its offshoots have often courted controversy and condemnation through its use of highly confrontational street preaching demonstrations and what many perceive as its anti-white teachings.4
The UPK and IUIC’s brand of Black Judaism are distinct from other versions in several areas, and they can be singled out as the most zealous form of the faith tradition. Upon initial observation what separates them from other Israelite groups are their street preaching demonstrations and YouTube videos that serve as their primary forms of proselytization. They also are distinguished by their style of dress that includes military style boots, studded and fringed colorful leather uniforms. The focus of this chapter, the IUIC, has adapted this uniform by wearing distinctive purple and gold shirts adorned with gold trim and white fringes at the bottom edge. Their street teaching demonstrations feature a rapid-fire reading of biblical scriptures with immediate interpretations by elders that address a host of topics concerning African American history, religion, and current events.
On the more controversial side, the IUIC employs a racial mythology that considers African American (or so-called blacks) to be the “true Jews,” they refer to white people alternately as “devils” or “Edomites” and regard continental (non-Bantu speaking) African ethnic groups as “Hamites” distinct from African Americans who they consider “Shemites.”5 Perhaps, the most distinguishing aspect of their racial mythology is their identification chart which lists the identity of the twelve tribes of Israel as coinciding with African Americans, Native Americans, Afro-Caribbean nationalities, Central and South American indigenous populations based on an allegorical reading of Genesis 49.
The IUIC represents one of the many offshoots that emerged over the past two decades from the UPK that are in major American cities and have established their own social media presence on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.6 Lamar’s connection to this strand of Hebrew Israelite theology is through his cousin Carl Duckworth, a former ordained Christian pastor who joined the group in 2015 and began sharing its teachings with Lamar. Based on their controversial reputation, fans, bloggers, and journalists were curious as to what degree Kendrick was affiliated with, or had adopted beliefs of, the IUIC.7 For some hip-hop fans this was their introduction to Hebrew Israelite beliefs being espoused via a hip-hop platform, for others it was a re-emergence. To understand the history of Hebrew Israelites and hip-hop culture let us turn back two decades to some lesser known artists.
Hip-hop is no stranger to marginalized iterations of African American religion. Early hip-hop was embedded with Islamic references from Sunni Islam, the Nation of Islam and the Nation of Gods and Earth (Five Percenters). Rappers layered lyrics with references to Malcolm X, Minister Louis Farrakhan and invoked popular Five Percenter teachings. During the Golden Age of hip-hop, prominent groups and individual rappers such as Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, Brand Nubian, Poor Righteous Teachers, Big Daddy Kane, and Paris articulated a form of cultural nationalism that was infused with Islamic images, symbols, and the use of the Arabic language.8
Even as the early to mid-1990s gave way to the rise of ‘gangsta’ rap that slowly pushed some of politically-inspired messages of earlier rappers now labeled as “conscious” to the background, Islamic-influenced rappers would continue to make socially and politically conscious hip-hop during the height of the G-Funk and Bling era. The Wu-Tang Clan, Common, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli continued droppin’ knowledge with Islamic-themed lyrics in hip-hop. References to Muslim beliefs even found their way onto the albums of hip-hip related R&B artists such as Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott.9 As Sa’ud Abdul Khabeer notes in Muslim Cool, the presence of Islamic culture and symbolism via hip-hop is somewhat ubiquitous – it would not be surprising to see on street corners, in barbershops, or college campuses, in a city like Philadelphia find two non-Muslim African American males greeting each other as “akh” (brother), while sporting full-length beards (Philly beard), wearing pants cut off above the ankle to showcase their fresh Timberlands. Following the Sunnah was hip-hop.10
Unlike its Islamic sibling, however, Black Judaism had a considerably lower profile within the rap corpus; therefore, there was not a sustained Hebrew Israelite presence in hip-hop. Residing in the long shadow cast by African American Islam, rappers with ties to Hebrew Israelite beliefs co-mingled with Black Nationalist Christians, Nuwaubians, and Afrocentric Egyptologists. With that said, Lamar was not the first mainstream hip-hop artist to insert Hebrew Israelite beliefs into his lyrics. Although not overtly Hebrew Israelite in lyrical material, old-school rapper Doug E. Fresh often wore a six-pointed Star of David, and he used the word “Shalom” in the song “Keep Rising to the Top.” Also, his video for the song “All the Way to Heaven” featured rotating Stars of David as Doug E. Fresh made references to his belief in God. However, the rapper never declaratively stated that he was an Israelite or Black Jew; listeners are left to infer about his religious identification.
The late 1990s saw Wu-Tang Clan associate Killah Priest release several albums with biblical and Hebraic themed material. His debut album Heavy Mental featured the song “B.I.B.L.E” (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth) which included several hallmarks of UPK Hebrew Israelite doctrine. He states, “I even learned Caucasians were really the Tribe of Edom. The white image, of Christ, is really Cesare Borgia.” Later in the song, he exclaimed, “I prophesied to save a man, but no one gave a damn for my nation, the seed of Abraham. Blessed with the tongue of Hebrew. Now we’re strung on needles, and some are plungin’ evils.”
First, Killah Priest references the Hebrew Israelite belief that white Europeans are descendants of the biblical personage Esau whose descendants were called Edomites or Idumeans is stated as the “real” identity of white people. This belief is based on a reading of Genesis 25:19–29, in which the biblical matriarch Rebekah gives birth to a set of fraternal twins: Jacob and Esau who become progenitors of respective peoples who are biologically related but at constant strife with each other. Second, he denounces the depiction of Jesus Christ as white as not being historically accurate but a representation of the papal family. While African Americans, as far back as Henry McNeal Turner’s pronouncement “God is a Negro,” have noted the historical Jesus in all probability could not have been of northern European background or white, Killah Priest via UPK doctrine takes the additional step of identifying the source for the iconic “White Jesus” image in the person of Cesare Borgia, son of the Pope Alexander VI and inspiration for Machiavelli’s classic The Prince. Finally, Killah Priest identifies with the biblical patriarch Abraham not as the spiritual offspring, as in the Christian tradition, but as the literal “seed” believed by Hebrew Israelites to be their patriarch along with claiming Hebrew as his ancestral language. Killah Priest juxtaposed this “knowledge of self” with the “lost” life of drug addiction and ignorance of the “true” history of black people.
On the track, “Cross My Heart” Killah Priest starts with these enigmatic lines, “It’s the Byzantine king, supreme. All kneel. Kiss the ring into an Elohim. I blow steam. From the families of the Maccabees. Smack emcees watch them scream your majesty.” Rather than just an example majestic braggadocio in declaring himself a great rapper, Killah Priest’s triumphal opening in the first couple of lines declares two rather obscure beliefs espoused by UPK-type Israelite groups. The first refers to the belief that during the medieval period or Dark Ages, black Israelites ruled over most of Europe. For this group of Hebrew Israelites, Byzantium was a black Israelite empire that lasted for a thousand years. Second, he refers to himself as Elohim the Hebrew word for “God” as well as human rulers in Psalms 82:6 – this is somewhat of a correlate to the Five Percenter lesson that the Black man is GOD.11 Killah Priest completes the line with his assertion of Maccabean ancestry, the famed Judean family who successfully defeated the Hellenistic Seleucids during the first century BCE memorialized in the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
One last set of Israelite lyrical references that presages Kendrick Lamar’s use of Israelite doctrines appears on the track, “One Step.” Killah Priest spits, “Early natives related to thrones of David. Captured by some patriots and thrown on slave ships.” Later he adds, “They took the first boat of Jacob to Jamaica … Deuteronomy 28, verse 68, it all relates, 1555 is when we first arrived.” In both sets of lyrics, Killah Priest references the central belief among Hebrew Israelites regarding the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade arguing that is was the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy found in Deuteronomy 28. Killah Priest would follow his first album with a sophomore album titled View from Masada, a reference to the ancient fortress that served as the base for a group of Jewish zealots’ rebellion against Rome in the first century CE.
Subsequently, Killah Priest and other Wu-Tang label affiliates, Prodigal Sunn, Hell Razah, 60 Second Assassin, and Shabazz the Disciple would form the group, Sunz of Man. As a group they wove together a tapestry of Hebrew Israelite and Five Percenter beliefs effortlessly and seamlessly that seemed apropos for the apocalyptic fears associated with the approaching millennium at the end of the 1990s. After his tenure with the Wu-Tang Clan, Killah Priest would continue making commercial hip-hop with artists known for their lyricism and form the supergroup, HRSMN (pronounced: Horsemen) with Ras Kass, Canibus, and Kurupt.
It should be mentioned at this juncture that members of Hebrew Israelite groups have also recorded hip-hop music that reflects their beliefs and doctrines. None to date have achieved commercial success as a Hebrew Israelite rapper therefore their omission is not a judgment on their artistic worth. No other mainstream rappers would overtly identify with Hebrew Israelite beliefs until St. Louis rapper Chingy who achieved stardom with the hit song “Right Thurr” abandoned mainstream hip-hop, adopted the Hebrew Israelite faith and recorded the track “King Judah” dedicating his music career to spreading the Hebrew Israelite message. In a YouTube clip and interview on VladTV, Chingy offers a detailed explanation of his beliefs.12
Neither Chingy nor Killah Priest were able to inspire a Hebrew Israelite cultural movement on par with Islamic identified rappers among the public. The absence of Israelite imagery and symbolism within hip-hop perhaps explains some of the buzz that was created by Kendrick’s Israelite declaration on DAMN., as not only fans wondered if he was now an Israelite, but also members of Hebrew Israelite groups themselves wanted to understand how his newfound identity and beliefs would play out under public scrutiny. In order to gain a better appreciation of the complexity that Kendrick’s declaration represents as a religion and hip-hop moment, let us now turn to a discussion how hip-hop integrates religious ideologies, vocabularies, and symbols to serve the communal needs of the artform and culture itself.
According to African American religion historian Josef Sorett, traditionally hip-hop has been typified by its religious diversity rather than adherence to a single religious tradition.13 Even with the strong presence of Islamic symbolism within hip-hop, it would an error to collapse hip-hop into being a uniquely or singularly an Islamic expression. Hip-hop has long housed multiple faith traditions and some artists have moved in and between these traditions with a degree of fluidity not always appreciated by many of their fans who maintain far more rigid religious identities of Christian, Sunni Muslim, Nation of Islam, Five Percenter, or Hebrew Israelite.
To some degree, the religious diversity of hip-hop is an extension of the sampling modality that rappers utilize in their art by interweaving religious themes and iconography with explicit demands for racial justice in their music. These artists make implicit (and explicit) theological arguments through their music that call for physical, psychological, and spiritual liberation. To offer more recent examples of this religious diversity, consider Kanye West whose own use of religious themes and imagery run the gamut from his iconic “least of these” anthem “Jesus Walks,” to his ‘crown of thorns’ Rolling Stone magazine cover to his self-deification on the album Yeezus14 His inclusion of fellow Chicagoan Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam on The Life of Pablo, joined two oft-criticized personalities of Obama’s hometown who did not quite represent his form of respectability politics.
Sorett’s observation regarding black religious fluidity is instructive:
The religion in these songs is not the result of exclusive doctrines of Islam, Christianity, or any other established faith tradition. Or as scholar Daniel White Hodge and others have noted, much of the twentieth century was typified by the soul-era ethos, in which traditional, hierarchal, rigid notions of religious belief and behavior were maintained and guarded.16 Established Black Christian denominations, Black Hebrew, and separate Muslim movements (indigenous and foreign born) engaged in contested theological battles over the “true religion of the so-called Negro.” In terms of hip-hop and black religion, the religious practices were essentially the performance of hip-hop itself. By this, I mean the liturgical and prophetic practices are embodied in the lyrics, dress, and mannerisms of the hip-hop generation. As White contends, the creation of the cipher allowed mass participation and exchanging of ideas.17 Turntablism and sampling served as informal proselytization as recordings of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan speeches were spread across radio waves and through concert speakers.
It is in this cultural milieu of religious diversity that Killah Priest represented an unapologetic Hebrew Israelite rapper whose music was thoroughly informed by its doctrines and his lyrical esotericism, and Chingy signifies the artist who transformed his career to accommodate his new-found “knowledge of self.” So, as we seek to make sense of Kendrick Lamar as the highest profile rapper to explicitly espouse Hebrew Israelite beliefs on an album, let us provide context for his apparent acceptance and usage of them as lyrical and sampling material by considering his spiritual worldview at the outset of DAMN. and how his inclusion of Hebrew Israelite beliefs may represent the type of religious diversity and synthesis described in the previous section.
In this section, I will discuss Kendrick’s spirituality not as a linear evolution but as a striving with dual functions. First, it reflects the notion that Lamar’s music has consistently wrestled with issues surrounding black suffering and the inability of traditional black religion to address these circumstances in his previous work. Second, as a pun on Kendrick’s Israelite declaration, I make use of the etymology of the term ‘Israelite’ itself. In the biblical account of Jacob, he encounters an angel and wrestles with it until daybreak. As a result the angel bestows the name Israel upon Jacob, which means “he who struggles (or strives) with God and man but prevails.”18 We can consider an Israelite as meaning one who struggles or strives with making sense of lived existence and the divine. This seems an appropriate description of Kendrick’s attempt to interpret black life in Compton while maintaining faith in the Divine.
To some degree, Lamar represents a post-soul faith that is troubled, perhaps even rife with paranoia. Take for example, Kendrick’s opening lines to the song “HiiiPower” in which he says, “Visions of Martin Luther staring at me. Malcolm X put a hex on my future someone catch me.” Early on in his music he confronts the ghosts of the civil rights generation and their competing philosophies that played out in the lives of the post-civil rights generations, as black communities like Compton underwent dramatic changes caused by deindustrialization, the infiltration of illicit drugs into urban America, and a conservative ‘whitelash’ to the advances made by the civil rights movement.
His faith has also been impacted by conspiracy theories and alternate worldviews of YouTube prophets. In the same song he drops the lines, “Who said a black man in the Illuminati. Last time I checked, that was the biggest racist party.” A clear reference to the conspiracy theory among segments of the hip-hop community of the existence a global secret cabal known as the Illuminati, which operates behind-the-scenes to control geo-politics through demonic power, money, political influence, and incidentally through popular entertainment making successful hip-hop artists a constant target of accusation. Conspiracy theories have long held a prominent place in hip-hop as forms of counter knowledge. It has elements of what anthropologist John L. Jackson Jr. regards as the racial skepticism that cannot take at face value the pronouncements of mainstream society. He argues that this paranoia informs how hip-hop spirituality creates its own authoritative sources.19 Counter knowledge or hidden knowledge often is compatible with black religious traditions that suppose themselves to be in possession of the true knowledge and the true identity of African Americans. Kendrick who has faced criticism for what some regard as his inconsistent “consciousness” concerning misogyny in his lyrics or his continued use of the n-word gained attention by publicly professing an alternate origin for the n-word with the Amharic word “Negus” meaning “emperor” during his freestyle on To Pimp A Butterfly.20 This example of counter knowledge presents Kendrick striving to find alternate explanations for the absurdities of black suffering and anticipates an adoption or sampling of Hebrew Israelite beliefs.
Kendrick’s lyrics and interviews encapsulate his worries about the damning influences of the world around him that could consume his mind, body, and spirit. Lamar’s album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, begins with several young men praying for forgiveness. The final track “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” ends with a second prayer, that Kendrick reveals is about the death of his friend.21 Years later, on the DAMN. track “FEAR.,” one of his fears is his fame and stardom would prevent him from being able to combat these damning influences as he becomes more isolated from friends and family.
His second album To Pimp a Butterfly features the signature track “Alright,” which became an anthem of momentary hope during a nadir of race relation that signified the second Obama term and rise of Trumpism. It begins with the assurance, “Nazareth, I’m fucked up, homie, you fucked up, but if God got us, then we gon’ be alright.” Two things stand out for closer inspection: First, as others have noted, Lamar’s association of his hometown Compton with Nazareth, a town depicted as lowly and unimportant in relation to the urban environs of Judaea but serves as the birthplace of the Christian messiah is an addition to the sacred geography and imagery of hip-hop that includes the Five Percenter references of Mecca, Medina, and New Jerusalem for Harlem, the Bronx, and New Jersey respectively.22 Compton as Nazareth and as a reference point for the proverbial saying that the “whole world is ghetto” provides religious imagery for a prophetic voice coming from a city associated with gang violence, drugs, and gangsta rap in the public imagination. Second, the juxtaposition of the word ‘nigga’ while simultaneously declaring, “God got us,” represents a theologically potent message of hope for marginalized and oppressed people.
Lamar’s references to racial suffering and curses that appear on DAMN. are woven into an almost blues-style reflection on the absurdity of black life. Like the bluesmen of yesteryear, Lamar is most powerful when his lyrics are situated between the sacred and the secular. Lamar’s musings are also situated in a grittier set of imagery and sonic scenery rather than accompanied by gospel-style music and choirs. As scholar of black religion Anthony B. Pinn points out in his discussion of hip-hop’s blurring of secular and sacred concerns, “The lyrical content with its expressed religious vision often creates a paradox. But this is not a problem that wipes out the value or vitality of the religious imagination within rap music.”23 In this way, Lamar consistently presents his narratives of black suffering and hope in “nitty-gritty hermeneutics.”24
As hip-hop theologian Daniel White Hodge notes in Hip Hop’s Hostile Gospel: A Post-Soul Theological Exploration, Lamar “combines the sacred, profane, and secular in a tightly woven social knot which creates a type of nitty-gritty hermeneutic in which his audience members are able to relate and engage.”25 Hodge calls this lyrical phenomenon “neo-secular sacred.”26 Within this context, DAMN. is not as much a representation of a singular religious tradition, but rather an expression of sacred and secular themes to make sense of black suffering as reflected on his previous albums. These vocabularies often speak to different religious communities based on their prior orientations hence the wide degree of responses to the album’s content. At this point, I will attempt to contextualize the Hebrew Israelite references in DAMN. as part of Lamar’s larger vocabulary and explain why I do not consider this a ‘conversion’ but an example of sampling and synthesis.
DAMN. attracted the attention of Forward writer Sam Kestenbaum who penned a multi-part series on the connection between Lamar’s Israelite references and the Hebrew Israelite movement.27 Likewise, Genius.com, the song-annotating website, published the article with an accompanying video titled, “Inside the Hebrew Israelite Movement That’s Inspiring Kendrick Lamar & Kodak Black.”28 Listeners and journalists alike wanted to uncover the link between Kendrick Lamar and his apparent newfound Israelite beliefs. This response can be attributed to the marginal position that Hebrew Israelites occupy within American pop culture and society in general. The source for this connection is far better known for its street teaching and YouTube clips than for being a reference point for impacting hip-hop culture.
The widespread interest can be contrasted with the relative low-level curiosity and interest garnered by other prominent African American celebrities who have had interactions or relationships with Hebrew Israelites groups. For example, the 2003 trip to Dimona to visit African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem by Whitney Houston gained media attention. After initial inquiries regarding whether Houston was joining the vegan, polygynist community attention subsided once it was revealed that the artist was recording an album in Israel. Likewise, other R&B singers, such as Stevie Wonder, have visited the Hebrew Israelite community often with minimal fanfare in the American or Israeli news.
We can contrast the response to Kendrick with the media interest in the “Black Jewish” background of hip-hop artists like Drake, or in the case of the former rapper Shyne who – after being convicted of assault, reckless endangerment, and gun possession in 2001 – converted to Orthodox Judaism and moved to Israel. In the cases of these rappers, Drake is discussed in terms of Jewishness associated with European ancestry and notions of bi-raciality, whereas Shyne’s path to Jewishness is through conversion. These two stories maintain what Afro-Jewish scholar, Walter Isaac, refers to as the “black-Jewish differential,” which posits Jewishness in people of African descent must be established through a European source to be legitimated as authentic.29
In Lamar’s case, his assertion of Israeliteness as a consequence of his blackness raises a separate set of issues. A similar case surrounds the ex-NBA star Amare Stoudemire whose association with a messianic Hebrew Israelite group led to publicly declaring himself a Hebrew Israelite and moving to the State of Israel to continue his professional basketball career. Similarly, Kendrick’s declaration, at the apex of his career, requires critical reflection regarding how and why he arrived at such a conclusion. Finally, the heterodox teachings of the IUIC allowing continued belief in Jesus as some sort of holy figure complicates matters regarding attempts to decode Kendrick along traditional Christian or Jewish frameworks. What exactly should one make of a Jesus-believing Black Hebrew Israelite? Where do they fit in the neat categories of ‘Jewish’ and ‘Christian’ that most Americans think of as mutually exclusive categories?
Even before the release of DAMN., there were clues Lamar left behind for listeners signaling that perhaps he was dabbling in the Hebrew Israelite tradition. A reference to Yahshua found on DJ Khaled’s “Holy Key” (2016) in which Lamar recites the following line: “I don’t wear crosses no more, Yahshua’s coming back.” Hebrew Israelites, like the IUIC, are self-described as “messianic” meaning they believe in Jesus as the messiah and/or a divine being, but also identify as Hebrews, Israelites, or Jews. Messianic Hebrew Israelites reject Christianity as “the white man’s religion” or the “slave master’s religion” and regard it as a corruption of the teachings of Jesus. Also, they typically eschew the symbols and holidays associated with the Christian faith such as crosses, Christmas, and Easter. The verse concludes with “Yahshua’s coming back” rather than “Jesus,” and this seems to indicate that Lamar has included messianic Hebrew Israelite teachings into his worldview.
When we examine DAMN., the overall number of references to Hebrew Israelite belief is rather small in comparison to the overall project. This is no Heavy Mental album with references to Judah, Yahawahshi, Edomites, or King David on nearly every track. Neither is there a particular song exclusively Hebraic in content or material. What we are left with is a neo-sacred secular album on which Kendrick drops Israelite references as needed to make points about his own identity, or the condition of black people more generally. The most explicit references are on the title of the track, “YAH.,” which refers to a biblical name of God and contains his declaration of Israelite identity and rejection of (organized) religion.
When Lamar on “DNA.” drops the following line, “I was born like this, since one like this Immaculate Conception, I transform like this, perform like this was Yahshua’s new weapon,”30 Lamar again uses the Hebrew for Jesus (Yahshua) in a metaphoric allusion to his own skills and abilities. The references to Yahshua may represent a convergence of his prior Christian belief and those Hebrew Israelites influences also find their way onto this album. To be sure he still maintains a traditional Christology with his reference of the “Immaculate Conception,” although it should be noted this refers to the conception of the Virgin Mary rather than the virgin birth of Jesus. At first glance, Lamar’s use of Yahshua rather than Yahawahshi may seem a departure from the IUIC’s dialect of Hebrew Lashawan Qadash; however, according to the lesson “The True Name” on the IUIC website it is clear both Yahawahshi and Yahshua are acceptable pronunciations of what they regard as the “true name” of Christ.
Lamar’s references to the Immaculate Conception on “DNA.” and the ‘Second Coming’ on “Holy Key,” while consistent with traditional Christology and theology, also represent messianic beliefs of the IUIC. To further explicate this point regarding the ‘Second Coming’ verse, the IUIC depiction of Jesus is one of the most imposing representations of the Black Christ image. The artistic rendering of the IUIC’s interpretation of Rev 1:14–15 features instead of a blackface version of traditional portrayals of Jesus, their “Black Christ” appears as dark-skinned, bloodshot-red eyed, solid white Afro sporting, muscular titan of a figure.31 Imagine a combination of the iconic Good Times painting of Ned the Wino as Black Jesus by J. J. Evans with the intergalactic villain Thanos from Marvel Comics to comprehend the image invoked by the IUIC. Rather than a bruised, battered and beaten suffering servant Christ figure, the IUIC invokes Black Christ as the “Lord of Host” with an angelic army in tow. This is Black Christ as the Hebrew Israelite ‘Avenger’ who Lamar is possibly eluding to in “Holy Key.” However, it is the tracks, “YAH.” and “FEAR.” from DAMN. that most explicitly feature the hallmarks of Hebrew Israelite beliefs: the “forgotten” Israelite ancestry of African Americans and more importantly that African Americans are subjects of divine curses. The song “FEAR.” opens with a recorded voicemail message from his cousin Carl Duckworth informing Kendrick that he is just checking on him and he is aware of his cousin’s sense of despair by revealing, “I know you been havin’ a lot on your mind lately, and I know you feel like, you know, people ain’t been praying for you.” But his response to Kendrick’s malaise is not ‘keep on pushing cuz’; rather, God is not only chastising him personally but to remind Kendrick that he is a member of a “cursed people.”
Carl Duckworth’s response to Lamar about the nature of black life, even for a successful hip-hop artist, informs us of the existential angst affecting many African Americans and cannot be evaded by financial security. In the social and political climate that produced the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, to witness a rapper of Lamar’s status eschewing the common ethnic nomenclature of ‘black’ in favor of ‘Israelite’ is somewhat surprising as it can be interpreted as a rejection of the political ethos of the moment. The IUIC’s position is diametrically opposed to the stated goals of BLM and similar organizations that view political struggle and organization as critical to African American progress. However, it was precisely the social and political climate that birthed BLM that also renewed the Hebrew Israelite appeal to disenchanted segments of the African American community by emphasizing the failure of hate crimes legislation, political movements, or even a Black president to create lasting protection from white supremacy. The perception that the Obama presidency failed to deliver African Americans to the proverbial Promised Land and the subsequent racist backlash that ensued has attracted a new generation of African Americans seeking answers to why, after the historic election of the nation’s first African American president, has an avalanche of racist violence been unleashed? It is here that IUIC offers a ready-made answer: Deuteronomy 28, a chapter that outlines a set of curses that would befall the Israelites if they disobeyed the commandments of their God. It is no coincidence that out of the canon of IUIC beliefs, Lamar selects the curses of Deuteronomy 28 to sample and highlight on DAMN.
Lamar concludes the song “FEAR.” with a second sample from Carl Duckworth: He informs his cousin about the consequences of the curses contained in Deuteronomy 28 the results of God’s chastisement out of love for his chosen people: blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. While it could be pure happenstance that Lamar’s cousin Carl chose to affiliate with the IUIC rather than some other Hebrew Israelite camp sharing similar beliefs regarding Deuteronomy 28; however, the IUIC and similar UPK-related groups occupy the most visible spaces on social media and within the public. They zealously challenge black passer-byers in public and by video to soberly assess their lives as black people in America concentrating on those verses from Deuteronomy 28 that most vividly paint a picture foretelling and explaining circumstances faced by African Americans for generations. Through the use of illustrations, maps, and other outsides sources, the IUIC and like groups simultaneously historicize and mythologize suffering of black folks as the consequences of transgenerational divine curses to which only a change in identity, and beliefs can alleviate. Contrast the IUIC who maintained that the Obama years were fool’s gold for African Americans with the Israelite Board of Rabbis, a rabbinic oriented Hebrew Israelite (Black Jews) organization whose leaders celebrated their invitations to the annual White House Hanukkah Party during President Obama’s last year in office.32 The IUIC’s message to Kendrick and to other African Americans: black existence is still not free from existential threat – even with a Black president.
What are we to make of Kendrick’s insertion of Hebrew Israelite doctrines into this album? Does it mean he is a Hebrew Israelite? Did he renounce Jesus Christ? As previously discussed, hip-hop culture has a long tradition of synthesizing multiple religious traditions for the sake of addressing the lived experiences of black people. Juan Floyd-Thomas highlights the fluidity of some artists to seek “truth” beyond a single religious tradition in his discussion of the ecumenical themes in Common’s music.33 Consider these verses from Common on “G.O.D. (Gaining One’s Definition)”: “My mind had dealt with the books of Zen/Tao the lessons/ Koran and the Bible, to me they all vital/ And got truth within ‘em, gotta read them boys/ You just can’t skim ‘em, different branches of belief/ But one root that stem ‘em, but people of the venom try to trim ‘em.” Common states he is comfortable studying the holy text over multiple religious traditions to discover their universal truths. While some rappers such as Yasiin Bey (Muslim) and Chance the Rapper (Christian) have more fixed religious identities, others are subject to speculation as their lyrics and displays of public religiosity blur lines and cause consternation. The public obsession with Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s religious beliefs and financial success has birthed a cottage industry of conspiracy theorists and insinuations that both he and his wife have had to defend themselves concerning accusations of belonging to the Illuminati and being professed devil worshippers.34
Although this phenomenon is not isolated to hip-hop artists, the public faith stance of rappers offers us a glimpse into what can occur when individuals place faith traditions in conversation to explain black lived experience. This may explain Kendrick’s approach during a Billboard interview in which he distances himself from the Israelite teachings of his cousin Carl Duckworth:
billboard: Your cousin Carl is a member of the Hebrew Israelites, who believe that African-Americans are the true descendants of the biblical Israelites. Carl pops up in a voicemail on “FEAR.” You call yourself an Israelite on the album. How much of his theology have you embraced, and how much of it is just you playing with the ideas?
lamar: Everything that I say on that record is from his perspective. That’s always been my thing. Always listen to people’s history and their background. It may not be like mine, it may not be like yours. It was taking his perspective on the world and life as a people and putting it to where people can listen to it and make their own perspective from it, whether you agree or you don’t agree. That’s what I think music is for. It’s a mouthpiece.35
I contend Kendrick’s inclusion of ‘cousin Carl’ is both a sample and a method of striving with an alternative explanation for black life. As a sample, Carl’s words offer a structure to the song that is not overly concerned with religious themes in a traditional sense. However, by inserting the samples as bookends to the track “FEAR.” describing moments that brought deep fear to Kendrick’s life, we see those instances of fear as surrounded by divine curses. Carl’s voicemail acts as an explanation for his “beatings,” his life in the streets, and ultimately his fear of fame.
In an interview, Carl Duckworth explained Kendrick is highly intrigued by Hebrew Israelite teachings and it was a collaborative idea to include the sample on the album.36 But in reference to the claim African Americans are cursed by God and, by extension, antiblack racism is a by-product of Divine punishment, Lamar is less ambiguous in his response:
billboard: So what’s your opinion about the idea that Carl brings up, that black people are cursed by God as per Deuteronomy?
lamar: That shit’s truth. There’s so many different ways to interpret it, but it’s definitely truth when you’re talking about unity in our community and some of the things we have no control over. Where there’s fighting against the government, where there’s fighting against our own political views, there’s always a higher being, right there willing to stop it.
billboard: It could be argued that blaming a curse from God kind of excuses a racist system.
lamar: Right. You take it how you wanna take it. The conversation’s there. We can sit and talk about it all day. I do, all day [laughs].
Kendrick’s affirmative response groups together a set of circumstances as evidence of the legitimacy of the curse doctrine. He couples a general lack of unity and control on the part of black folks with what he regards as unsuccessful opposition to government policies by political movements. He regards this lack of progress as being the result of a divine being preventing success. His answer presents an image of the Divine similar to the story of the Tower of Babel in which God actively opposes human cooperation lest they become convinced of their own abilities. Kendrick’s reticence in not unequivocally condemning institutional racism, and offering an ambiguous response regarding God’s culpability in black suffering does demonstrate that the “curse consciousness” of his exposure to Hebrew Israelite teachings made an impact on his perception of reality. By “curse consciousness,” I mean the overdetermining belief that any action engaged in by blacks will ultimately fail if it is not “ordained by God.”37
I do not regard it as mere coincidence that Kendrick also refers to the idea of divine curses as “Truth.” The notion of being “in the Truth,” according to the Hebrew Israelites, refers to the process of adopting a Hebrew Israelite identity. It marks the beginning of a conversion process in which African American must reorient to the idea of “knowledge” itself. It attempts to upend everything that black folks tend to think and believe about themselves. Hebrew Israelites seek to break apart attachments to meanings and definitions that are taken for granted and center new “Israelites” into a worldview based their interpretations of biblical history and prophecy. This is considered being “in the Truth” rather than converting because for the Hebrew Israelite black people’s nationality (Israelite), God (Yahawah), and proper way of life (Torah) have been there all along only concealed through ignorance of self. This process is not unique to Hebrew Israelites as many religions engage in a process of reorienting converts to a new worldview, which may be in conflict with their former life and identity. Finally, Kendrick’s answer indicates regard for a “higher being” controlling the state of black existential suffering. It is here that we turn to how Kendrick understands God and God’s role in black suffering.
In DAMN. there arises a dichotomy regarding how one views the nature of God. Kendrick Lamar’s insertion of Israelite belief emphasizes a God of justice and retribution. While this conception is not dramatically different than representations in the Bible, the emphasis on justice and retribution by Hebrew Israelites perceives black folks in need of correction to bring on liberation. In essence, Hebrew Israelites present a deity that has lost patience by the twenty-first century with a “stiff-necked” chosen people who seem disinterested in returning to their “true” identity. In stark contrast to “God is love” declarations prevalent in contemporary American society, Hebrew Israelites warn of a Deity reminiscent of Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The influence of Hebrew Israelite theology appears to shift Kendrick’s lyrics from a God who identifies with black suffering and provides comfort in “Alright” to we need to repent and seek forgiveness in DAMN.
USA Today writer Christian Schneider makes a similar point through a distinction between Kendrick’s and Chance the Rapper’s conceptions of God. Chance the Rapper highlights throughout Coloring Book the suffering around him; however, he also praises God as the source of all of his blessings.38 This depiction is contrasted with that of Lamar, who portrays a God that imposes dire consequences on those not following his commandments. Through his insertion of Carl’s voicemail, Lamar’s God reckons with black people because they are His chosen.
In a response to Miguelito’s commentary on DAMN., Lamar states, “Our God is a loving God. Yes. He’s a merciful God. Yes. But he’s even more so a God of DISCIPLE [sic]. OBEDIENCE. A JEALOUS God.”39 His conception of the divine described here is rooted in the theological worldview of IUIC teachings. Their street demonstrations often concentrate on the retributive nature of God as punisher of sins and redeemer of the children of Israel from their enemies. In imagery rivaling some of the Spirituals, Hebrew Israelites have conceived of a deity that will bring justice on oppressors. Although believing black people are suffering “under the curse” of disobedience, Hebrew Israelites vociferously assert it is God who will ultimately destroy white supremacy and end black suffering in an eschatological battle upending current racial hierarchies. This type of divine imagery is reminiscent of the lyrics and imagery of the Negro spiritual, “Ride On, King Jesus” in which enslaved Africans celebrated a triumphant Christ as worshippers exclaimed, “In that great getting’ up morning. No man shall hinder me.” This language fits neatly into the conception of God presented on DAMN. Therefore, Kendrick’s conception of the divine as a “God of discipline and obedience” is balanced by belief that this deity, rather than political movements or black presidents, will put an end to white supremacy and black suffering through eschatological reckoning. This is a provocative stance given that it requires a form of faith that can easily lend itself to inaction on the part of its adherents.
While I regard the lyrics and interview statements by Lamar as evidence he has been influenced by and partially accepted some Hebrew Israelite beliefs regarding the state of black suffering in America, I also consider his refusal to claim all the beliefs as indication he has not fully identified as a Hebrew Israelite but finds it useful as a vocabulary to view and analyze black life that was lacking in his initial Christian understanding. In this concluding section, I will turn to Kendrick’s understanding of sin, black suffering, and identity, exploring how this may explain his rejection of religion as an insufficient category for liberation.
Taken together, Kendrick Lamar’s treatment of black suffering punctuated by DAMN.’s Israelite references offers both a question and a response. Perhaps the entry point for Kendrick Lamar’s interest in his cousin Carl’s newfound beliefs was his acknowledgment of the presence of sin, and its consequences that cannot go unnoticed by a personal deity. Let us turn to Kendrick’s response email to DJ Booth, he writes,
While outer appearances might render Lamar’s construction of sin and damnation as oversimplified, he once again is striving to see the correlation between lived experience and how God interacts or is present in those experiences. His response to the sermon being “one-sided” was the lack of discipline by God in the pastor’s formulation. What the IUIC’s lessons provide for Lamar is the premise that communal sin requires correction. There is nothing novel about this idea; it is at the bedrock of the Abrahamic faiths. Even more so, it is not unique to the Hebrew Israelite tradition to believe in communal reward and punishment. If wrestling with sin and black suffering witnessed in Lamar’s previous albums presented the question, “Why do Black people suffer?,” DAMN. offers an answer in the form of redemptive suffering through divine curses. The presence of human-constructed evil and sin from Lamar’s vantage point cannot go unchecked which explains his acceptance of the divine response being in the form of corrective curses. Kendrick’s theological perspective has settled on perceiving black people as needing to change their consciousness and behavior to ameliorate the effects of black suffering.
Historian Sylvester Johnson discusses this as the ‘ethnic turn’ in early twentieth-century black religions in which African Americans began eschewing the negative perceptions associated with the nomenclature Negro and offered alternate ethnoreligious identities, such as Moor, Muslim, Israelite, and Ethiopian Hebrew. A consequence of this ‘ethnic turn’ is the equating of ethnicity with a particular faith tradition. To have true ‘knowledge of self’ one had to know one’s ‘true’ identity, God, language, and culture (or religion). As these ethnoreligious communities debated the true identity of so-called Negroes, one faith tradition was unanimously seen as deficient: western Christianity. The identification of Christianity with Europeans did not extend to the historical Jesus, however. This leads us to one of the most enigmatic and debated verses on DAMN.41
On “YAH.,” Lamar’s begin his declaration with, “I’m not a politician, I’m not ‘bout a religion.” For Lamar, politics and religion are both edifices of human creation to control people, particularly oppressed people. In this case, Hebrew Israelites and Karl Marx make strange bedfellows. But his rejection of religion as a category is seemingly contradicted in the next line when he states, “I’m an Israelite, don’t call me black no mo’. That word is just a color, it ain’t facts no mo.’ ” Immediately, questions arise as to what Lamar means by this statement. How is he not religious but an Israelite? How does he understand being black? Is it standard categorizations of racial identity that he rejects? I contend Kendrick is using “Israelite” as a signifier of his humanity before its degradation by racial oppression. Israelite becomes a symbol of being ‘not a thing,’ ‘not a color,’ and ‘not an object.’ He adds ‘Israelite’ to his vocabulary and worldview while deleting ‘black’ and ‘religion’ as continuations of objectified existence in which suffering is the only logical outcome. This also explains why Lamar does not need to claim membership in the IUIC: he is already an Israelite by nationality (whether real or imagined). Lamar’s move past (versus post)black is not through a vocabulary of universalism, but particularism encoded in Hebrew Israelite symbols and language. When Lamar states that black is just a color (a thing) he does not reject the lived experience of people designated as ‘black.’
Whether because of the outreach efforts of the IUIC or the public embrace by a prominent rapper like Kendrick Lamar, it seems Hebrew Israelite beliefs are experiencing a renaissance with a cross-section of African Americans because they offer African Americans an account of their reality centered on their historical experiences. They are not like the chosen people of God; they are chosen people of God. How would hip-hop respond to the current sociopolitical moment? Enter DAMN.