Frank L. Samson
Sociology Department, Stanford University

Abstract

Theophus Smith's Conjuring Culture provides the hermeneutical tools to track the transmission and transformation of Biblical images, metaphors, and figures beyond the sacred site of the African American church into the popular cultural forms of film, music, and performance poetry as exemplified by Saul Stacey Williams. Williams uses Biblical figures to challenge white supremacy, patriarchy, and misogyny, while identifying his cultural productions as expressions of divinity. Rooting himself firmly in the hip hop genre, Williams' brilliant appropriations of the Bible as a "conjure book" point to the continued relevance and importance of Christianity to contemporary youth and popular culture.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

- John 1:1

If Biggie Smalls' first album had not been entitled "Ready To Die", don't you think he would be alive right now? How dare anyone be surprised at that! It's very simple! It's very simple.[1]

- Saul Williams

[1] In Conjuring Culture, Theophus H. Smith sets out to explore the ways in which the act of "conjuring" infuses the religious and cultural practices of African Americans and more specifically its multi-faceted deployments throughout African American Christianity and spirituality. According to Smith:

conjure is a magical means of transforming reality. Here the term "magic" is best understood as one system . . . for mapping and managing the world in the form of signs.[2]

By defining conjure and magic in such a way, Smith sets out to rescue it from the Western scientistic sensibility that relegates such terms to the realm of the irrational, primitive, and pre-Enlightenment. Instead, Smith argues for an alternative system of signs that map onto reality in order to control it, in much the same way that modern chemistry has developed a system of symbols to represent elements in order to manipulate them. By identifying conjure as a legitimate practice embedded in African American everyday life, Smith teases out some of the distinctive and life-affirming rituals that have and continue to sustain the African American community throughout slavery, Jim Crow, and the more sophisticated and subtle forms of white supremacy in practice in the United States today.

[2] Given the essential function of conjurational performances in African American cultural and religious practices, Smith engages in a religious study which:

proposes a view of conjure performance that encompasses social-historical transformations as well as folklore practices. I refer to such transformations as conjuring culture, specifically where I find (1) ritually patterned behaviors and performative uses of language and symbols (2) conveying a pharmacopeic or healing/harming intent and (3) employing biblical figures and issuing in biblical configurations of cultural experience.[3]

The centrality of the oral tradition in African American life serves as an integral part of community building, integration, and sustenance. Through stories, sermons, and social conversations, African Americans have maintained communal and generational bonds in the face of an isolationist and individualistic American ethos. These ritual behaviors and linguistic modes of communication have provided a means of communion and catharsis for one of U.S. racism's despised and dehumanized people. The fact that survival of African Americans would entail the creative and innovative appropriation of biblical themes and figures testifies to the power and prophetic relevance of the Judeo-Christian narratives and scriptures in African American life.

[3] Smith points out that the African American community's biblical hermeneutics challenge much of Western culture's pernicious scriptural interpretation. Biblical narratives have aided and abetted the white supremacist argument that African peoples are inferior and helped legitimate chattel slavery in America. Rather than focusing on critical re-readings and recoveries of misused or unused sections of the Bible, as other African American religious scholars have done, Smith concentrates his efforts on a different aspect of African American biblical hermeneutics and appropriation:

Here the sacred text of Western culture, the Bible, comes to view as a magical formulary for African Americans: a book of ritual prescription for reenvisioning and, therein, transforming history and culture . . . What is innovative is a remarkably efficacious use of biblical figures, with a historically transformative and therapeutic intent, in the social imagination and political performances of black North America.[4]

Smith's analysis of the transformative use of biblical figures serves as the explanatory framework in this essay. In particular, this essay explores the ways in which African Americans use the Bible as a "conjure book", that is, "as a kind of magical formulary for prescribing cures and curses, and for invoking extraordinary powers in order to re-envision, revise, and transform the conditions of human existence."[5] Thus the Bible "functions as an iconographic source of figures and incantations to be mimetically appropriated and replicated."[6]

[4] Introducing the section on "Theoretical Perspectives", Smith invokes the work of Afro-American philosopher Lucius Outlaw. Smith cites Outlaw's call for a "hermeneutic of black cultural productions . . . a study of black religious language and symbolism in sermons and spirituals; a study of the language of the blues; and a study of black political writings and speeches, particularly protest language; a study of poetic and literary languages and symbolisms."[7] As a response to Outlaw's intellectual summons, the following essay attempts to address this last genre of black cultural production - poetry - and in particular the performance form of poetry that is undergoing a resurgence today. This recent revival appears to derive from the spoken word of the 1960s and 70s Black Arts movement, now resurrected and infused with the innovative rhythms and oppositional energies unleashed by hip hop culture during the 1980s and 90s. To illustrate the insights gained from Smith's analytical propositions, this essay explores the work of Saul Williams, recognized as one of the leading young voices in the current spoken word renaissance. This paper identifies the ways in which Biblical figures and conjurational practices continue to play a role in contemporary black cultural production as exemplified in Williams' work.

Saul Williams

[5] Saul Stacey Williams, performance poet, actor, musician, and writer, is perhaps best known for his lead role in the movie Slam, which won the 1998 Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Cannes' Camera d'Or (best first film) awards. Emerging as the Nuyorican Poets Cafe's Grand Slam Champion in 1996, Saul captured the attention of Slam director Marc Levin, who was impressed by Williams' poetic imagination and masterful oratory. Saul Williams' sophisticated command of poetic language can be traced back to the culturally-enriched family life that his mother, a school teacher, and his father, a Baptist minister, provided for the young Williams. According to Williams, they "were always concerned about my exposure to everything, so we were always going to Broadway plays and concerts."[8] Enrolled in a magnet school, this adolescent aspiring actor participated in a class called "Shake Hands with Shakespeare", playing Marc Antony in the school's staging of the play Julius Caesar. At the same time, Williams was inspired to begin writing while listening to hip hop music and rap artists who - Williams recognized upon later reflection - introduced him to some "big words" used in their lyrics. Challenged and intrigued, Williams turned to the dictionary to decipher the meaning of these "big words" and began to compose his own lyrics using new words he discovered there. He would then recite these rhymes as part of a neighborhood rap group with his school friends, "battling other MC's" every day during lunch at the cafeteria to improve his skills. The Reverend Williams would also recruit his son to compose anti-drug rap rhymes for church youth rallies in Newburgh, New York. This early exposure to hip hop, Shakespeare, and Broadway performances would give rise to the poetry and dramatic artistry that propelled Saul Williams onto his road to recognition.

[6] While in high school, Williams participated in an exchange program that provided him with the opportunity to study in Brazil. According to Williams, this exposure was significant in expanding his perspective on life and culture. Having discovered and nurtured his performing interests at an early age, Williams would go on to double major in philosophy and drama, receiving his Bachelor's degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta. Continuing to pursue his thespian ambitions, Williams attended New York University and obtained a Master in Fine Arts degree in Acting. It was during this period of his life that he was first exposed to the world of "slam" poetry, a competitive form of performance poetry that resonated with his childhood background as a hip hop lyricist and his ongoing passion for acting. In a Boston Globe article by Peter Brunette, Williams reflects on this initial exposure:

"Someone took me to a poetry reading in 1994, and I was like, that's what everything was for," he says. He started writing poetry again and, after working through his fear about reciting in public, Williams eventually won the Grand Slam, with director Levin in attendance. The young writer had been fretting about how he was going to unite his two loves, poetry and acting, and then Levin called. "It was like the glass slipper that fit my foot perfectly," Williams says.[9]

With Marc Levin, Saul Williams helped to workshop Slam's screenplay, and eventually landed the lead role in this award winning independent film about drugs and dreams, poetry and prisons, and black life on the block in Washington DC's urban "'hoods."

[7] In addition to Slam, Williams has been featured in two documentaries about slam poetry, Underground Voices and Slam Nation, and a Public Broadcasting Service series on African American culture, I'll Make Me a World. Williams has published two poetry books, The Seventh Octave and SÁhe, and is working on a third book/CD-ROM production. He has also appeared on several spoken word compilations and hip hop albums. Williams has performed alongside earlier generations of poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Sonia Sanchez, and performed as the opening act for contemporary hip hop groups such as The Roots. Williams locates his art at the juncture between poetry and hip hop: an intergenerational fusion of African American oral and literary traditions. Considered in light of his familial ties to the church, Saul Williams and his work call out for an exploration of the ways in which conjurational practices and biblical figures continue to inform contemporary African American cultural production.

Poetry and recitation as incantation

The stuff that I'm reciting, they're incantations, spells - we spell words - that we're putting . . . that I'm just putting out there because I want that rippling effect to create the world I want to live in.[10]

- Saul Williams

[8] This statement made during a performance and question and answer program at the Askwith Education Forum at Harvard University, illustrates the extent to which Saul Williams himself recognizes the conjurational component of his poetry. Self-identifying his recitations as incantations and spells, Williams' work invites a reading through the theoretical framework provided by Theophus Smith's notion of conjuring culture. In observing the power of language to transform thoughts and action, Williams puns the word spell to draw attention to its multivalent definition. Williams draws upon the general conception that words are spelled, acted upon as the direct object of the verb spell, to indicate the composition of words by individual letters. In a clever twist, Williams also builds off the magical definition of the noun spell to act as a verb on the indirect object, words, to connote the incantational use of words acting upon society and bringing about an intentional outcome, or as Williams puts it, "to create the world I want to live in." Williams demonstrates a belief that words as signs, and languages as systems, are flexible and available to individuals who wish to utilize them to restructure and/or reshape the various worlds and world views people inhabit. Williams also appears to recognize that despite the shifting signification of words, they can nevertheless have material impact, even if simply opening up individuals' imaginations to serve as a wellspring for action.

[9] The power of discourse becomes less ambiguous and more functional when viewed through the perspective of African American conjurational processes. As Smith points out:

some language users are more proficient in utilizing the power of discourse to recall and project ritual significations: poets and vocalists, preachers and orators, writers and dramatists. Their varied inducements to restore such a ritual cosmos are also an invitation to make the figurative efficacious; to participate in symbols not only cognitively, but so as to fulfill them on the scale of group actions and social dramas.[11]

Viewed in such a light, Smith shows that the use of words - the power of discourse - by many of the word-smiths of the African American community, be they poets, vocalists, preachers, orators, writers, or dramatists, operate at a level which can inform group action. It is also important to recognize that everyone can make use of the power of words, not solely the specialists that Smith writes about. The accessibility of discursive power - the ability of everyday peoples to communicate with one another, to create themselves and the world around them - unleashes a form of power that can serve as the basis of a radically democratic politics. The appropriation of language poses the possibility of subverting elite discourse. Linguistic proficiency may vary, but the transformational efficacy of symbols may be more universally accessible because the signifying power of words relies upon their enactment by ordinary individuals.

[10] Commenting on the power of the word to "create the world", Saul Williams cites an easily recognized biblical narrative. He reminds the audience that:

The Bible says "In the Beginning . . . and God said, 'Let there be light' and then there was," not there was light and then God said.

God said, and then . . .

And it's always been known: the power of word. The power of word, that's what Slam was about, is about. The power of word to affect change.[12]

In this example, Saul Williams draws upon Genesis 1:3 NRSV[13] to illustrate his point. Shaped by a highly biblicist society, U.S. popular imagination can readily understand Williams' argument when he draws upon this well-known passage to illuminate his point: that the power of word to effect change can be traced back to stories of the world's creation. This central tenet - the power of words - forms the foundation of the poetics, spiritics, and politics of Saul Williams' life and work.

Slam

[11] In the film Slam, in which Saul Williams plays the lead role and for which he is credited as one of four screenwriters, the film's title itself draws upon the same multi-definitional punning that Williams employed in using the word spell. The movie's plot focuses on Raymond Joshua, a young man living in Washington DC who is arrested and imprisoned after drugs are discovered in his vehicle. While serving time awaiting his trial, he begins to write and discover the power of words, especially after coming across a prison writing class taught by Lauren (poet Sonja Sohn) who encourages Raymond's writing. Lauren later introduces Raymond to the world of slam poetry when he is temporarily released on bail. Through writing, and later slam poetry, Raymond discovers a level of freedom he is only beginning to explore. The significance of the film's title Slam therefore lies not only in referring to the competitive performance poetry known as slam poetry, but also represents a shortened version of a colloquial identifier of prisons: the "slammer". Once again, multiple levels of meaning are present.

[12] While the title of the film operates on different levels, what is perhaps more significant to the conjurational interest of this essay is the name of the character played by Saul Williams. In the chapter on "Prophecy" in Conjuring Culture, Theophus Smith calls the reader's attention to the life of Sojourner Truth, highlighting the "signifying import of her name", which is "emblematic of her prophetic and political vocation."[14] With a similar intention, Saul Williams clearly selects his character's name to imbue the poetry that the character performs with incantational potential and power. During the Askwith Education Forum, Williams acknowledged:

I named the main character in Slam, Raymond Joshua. Because Joshua . . . because in the Bible, Joshua marches around the city of Jericho seven times and the walls of Jericho come tumbling down.

And I say, "Well, if I lace the poetry in this film with enough spells, strong enough spells, and they play it on 700 screens, the walls of Babylon should come tumbling down."

And it was real simple. And it was just all about affecting change, affecting consciousness, affecting the way people think.[15]

Thus Williams envisions a connection between his character's name and its potential for mimetic transformation. Williams employs the biblical figures of Joshua, Jericho, and Babylon to cast a spell through the film Slam.

[13] Using Smith's theoretical framework for conjuring culture, the film and its main character Raymond Joshua can be viewed as a ritual performative action, playing several times a day on movie screens across the country, reenacting or recasting the spell each time. In the Old Testament, Joshua 6:4-21 NRSV describes the Lord's promise to Moses' successor Joshua to deliver Jericho to the Israelites. Performing ritual acts prescribed by the Lord, Joshua leads his army in a march around the city seven times, causing the surrounding wall that protected the inhabitants of Jericho to "fall down flat" and allowing the Israelites to enter and destroy the city. By appropriating the Jericho narrative, Williams casts a spell that has a harming effect upon the figure that Jericho mimetically represents. It is significant, however, to note Williams' minor modification to the Jericho figure. If the mimetic conjuration of Saul Williams' spell is successful, he intends that not Jericho, but the walls of Babylon, another biblical figure, come tumbling down.

[14] In the chapter on "Apocalypse," Smith undergoes a treatment of the apocalyptic figure of Babylon.[16] According to Smith, the Black Muslim and Black Panther Party refer to America as Babylon. Smith also relates the figure of Babylonian Captivity to the experience of Rastafarians in the New World.[17] In the context of the Jericho conjuration, Williams' reference to the walls of Babylon likely pertains to the fallen city of Babylon in Revelation 18. If so, the Babylon type may indeed apply directly to America as a symbol of decadence, or the figure may connote a decadent civilization as a whole. Whichever allusion is implied, Williams' mimetic conjuration using the figures of Joshua and Jericho would cause the fall of Babylon's walls and the city's destruction by those excluded beyond the walls. Moreover, the Jericho narrative places a curse upon those who would attempt to rebuild its decadence (Josh 6:26). The African American prophetic tradition has long called attention to the decadence of America with its pernicious ideology and practice of white supremacy. In general, anti-colonial African critique long ago recognized the decadence of Western civilization and its Eurocentrism. In light of these cultural-historical resources, Williams' conjurational use of the Joshua, Jericho, and Babylon biblical figures clearly draws from and maintains these critical and prophetic traditions.

Biblical appropriations in Williams' poetry

I love . . .

as instruments come to life through breath
the wind sends my high notes to indigo communions
with Coltranes' "Favorite Things"
. . . this is my body
which is given for you.
this is my blood
which is shed for you . . . [18]

[15] The Bible also serves as a resource for Saul Williams' poetry. From his love poem "The Winds' Song", the verse above ends with a variation of the covenant of the Lord's Supper (Matt 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20). As the covenantal sacrifice that begins the Passion narrative, the Christian tradition interprets the Passion as the ultimate act of Jesus' love for the Lord's children. Jesus' Passion, His suffering and self-sacrifice, resonates deeply with the pain and suffering experienced by African Americans. As prominent black theologian James Cone writes:

Jesus' death was a sacrifice . . . Thus the reality and the depth of God's presence in human suffering is revealed . . . especially in his death on the cross . . . He is not merely sympathetic with the social pain of the poor but becomes totally identified with them in their agony and pain.[19]

In both historical and contemporary day-to-day experience, this African American encounter with suffering gives rise to the blues sensibility, which Cone also identifies in his classic treatise on the spirituals and the blues:

[T]he blues is the experience of being black in a white racist society. It is that peculiar feeling that makes you know that there is something seriously wrong with the society, even though you may not possess the intellectual or political power to do anything about it.[20]

Therefore, when Williams appropriates the sacrificial covenant as a poetic metaphor, this phrase draws upon the suffering felt and known by African Americans, transformed through Jesus' sacrificial Passion to communicate one of the deepest expressions of love that words could ever convey.

[16] A versatile poet, Williams deploys biblical phrases in a variety of contexts to signify different meanings. In "Luna See - Moon Eye," he utilizes the second half of the covenantal phrase - "this is my blood which is shed for you" - in a completely different context, as illustrated in the following:

this is my blood which is shed for
. . . you motherfuckers are undeserving

forcibly penetrating my indigo silence
in the name of the father
and the Sun[21]

In its entirety, the poem appears to be a critique of patriarchy and misogyny. The use of blood in the poem signifies both the image of blood shedding during birth as well as during the menstrual cycle: this last image re-directing attention to the moon metaphors in the poem's title.

[17] In the verse above, however, the images that come after the covenantal offering - a scriptural symbol of sacrificial love appropriated from the Lord's Supper narrative - cast a different meaning upon the phrase. The line immediately following the sacrificial offering castigates those patriarchal individuals who are born of the womb that bled for their existence. The misogynistic connotations are even further pronounced by the rapacious imagery, "forcibly penetrating," embedded in the next line. The last line of the verse and poem contains another biblical appropriation: "in the name of the father and the Sun." Again, Williams assigns this phrase a different meaning than that employed by the Bible. The phrase can be found in Matt 28:19 NRSV as part of a trinitarian declaration, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." In the context of Williams' poem, however, it becomes an incisive critique of patriarchal society, and perhaps not indirectly, the androcentrism of Christianity itself. As black feminist theologian Cheryl Townsend Gilkes points out, "Black people learned of God as 'a father of the fatherless' through patriarchal imagery in an androcentric text."[22] In a clever twist, Williams goes further in clarifying the antagonism between gendered images by substituting the homonym "Sun" for "son." As the moon is an icon often associated with femininity, Williams accents the gender-based tensions in this poem by incorporating Luna's antithetical icon: the Sun.

[18] On his recent project, an album of spoken word and musical tracks entitled, Amethyst Rock Star, Williams continues to challenge the authority and legitimacy of patriarchy using the first lines of the Lord's Prayer as his poetic vehicle. The poem, entitled "Our Father" begins with a three-and-a-half minute sermon on being a good father (delivered by Rev. Saul Williams, Sr.), followed by the younger Williams' own recitation:[23]

Our Father which art in

St. Francis Hospital for hypertension

Our Father which art in
Jumpsuits in prisons, federal detention
Our Father which art in
Dark bars and alleys, lethal injection
Our Father which art in
Denial, Delusion. This can not happen again.

Hallowed be thy
State your name for the record.

--------------------------------

Dear Goddess, We made this break-beat just for you
As an offering, Can you hear us now?

Dear Goddess, We made this break-beat just for you
As an offering, Can you feel us now?

Dear Goddess, We made this break-beat just for you
As an offering, Can you heal us now?

This recitation has at least two apparent interpretations. If framed within the context of the African American community that Williams identifies with, the opening verses serve as a stark reminder about some of the social issues facing African American men, resulting from America's institutionalized racism. High stress levels, incarceration, drug abuse, and mental breakdown are among the many challenges facing black men in a U.S. civilization founded on the malicious ideology of white supremacy.

[19] In the context of the whole poem, a second interpretation reveals a critique of the patriarchal father figure. While the poem's initial lines discuss real social issues, they also question the extent to which men in such situations can fulfill the role of a caring and responsible father (assuming the heterosexist and patriarchal conception of the family). A significant shift takes place after the appropriation of the Lord's Prayer at the start of the poem; Williams sends an appeal to the divine, bearing the greeting "Dear Goddess." In a poetic twist, Williams articulates his belief, or rather recovers an obfuscated faith, in a matriarchal divinity. In doing so, Williams enacts a "reminder" described by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes: "[M]otherly omnipotence attributed to God within the black tradition has been used as a corrective and reminder to those who would restrict the imagery of God to the realm of the male and who would forget the larger formulation, of paramount importance to the tradition, that 'God is spirit.' "[24]

[20] In another poem, "Children of the Night," which Williams, after performing the piece, described as "an incantation of sorts,"[25] other biblical allusions are made:

Who will deny them when thrice crows the cock?

Will it be you Peter?
decked in daymares denial
masqueraded in matter
over mind
under trial

self is the servant to serpents with wings[26]

The first two lines in this selection make use of the Gospel stories which tell of Peter's denial of Jesus during the Passion narratives (Matt 26:69-75; Mark 14:66-72; Luke 22:54-62; John 18:15-18, 25-27). Within the context of Williams' poem, which is a complex composition of metaphors, myths, and mysticism, the phrase challenges those who stifle the importance of children and their imaginations. Peter becomes the figure that represents the fetishization of material concerns over and against visionary imagination, because matter takes precedence over mind. In the Biblical text, Peter denies his relationship to Jesus in order to save himself from Jesus' persecution. In his poetic allusion, Williams stories the scene of a society that does not value its children nor recognizes that they are the dreamers and visionaries of a world locked within the iron cages of rationalization and secularism. The image in the last line, serpents with wings, does not derive directly from scripture. However, it does resemble a dragon, which occupies a significant role in the Book of Revelation as the embodiment of the Devil (Rev 12:3). With this last metaphor, Williams conveys the message that selfishness contributes to the problem of evil in society.

[21] The apocalyptic figure of Revelation once again supplies an array of symbols, codes, and characters which can be conjured by a prolific poet such as Williams. In the incantational piece cited above, the reference to Peter is preceded by an earlier stanza which contains the following lines:

the rumors of war and famine
diseases and storms of hail[27]

These are all apocalyptic images drawn from the Book of Revelation: war, famine, diseases can be linked to 3 of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rev 6:1-8 NRSV - "to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence . . . ") while the storms of hail can be found in Rev 8:7. Another familiar apocalyptic symbol is used in a later stanza:

orbiting the realms of the ordinary
through the ordinances of those ordained by the beast[28]

In Revelation 13, two beasts are introduced as servants of the dragon (Satan). In Williams' appropriation, the stanza lashes out at the demonization of the marginalized, who are judged as abnormal (outside the realms of the ordinary) according to the norms and laws (ordinances) created by those whom Williams characterizes as legitimated (ordained) by the beast and bearing its authority. In another poem, "Amethyst Rocks," the numerical representation of the name of the beast (Rev 13:18) is invoked in another social commentary:

'dodgin' cops
'cause five-0 are the 666[29]

"Five-0" is a colloquial term used to describe police officers. Signifying police with 666 (the number of the beast), and placed in the context of the image of the beast deployed in his earlier poem, the poet-conjurer Williams performs multiple mimetic conjurations. By marking the police with the number of the beast, Williams casts a spell that intends to bring upon the police and other representatives of the beast the same fate that befalls the beast and its followers: defeat and damnation (Rev 19:20-21) .

[22] In addition to apocalyptic themes, Williams uses other symbols and conjurations drawn from the Bible to reaffirm the divinity and creativity of human beings. One of the numerical figures found throughout Revelation, and the Bible as a whole, is the number 7, which in biblical terms is the divine number. Several of Williams' poems incorporate the number 7 in the text or the title.[30] In earlier remarks on the spell he is casting with the movie Slam, Williams revealed that a component of his performative ritual included presentation on "700 screens." The ubiquitous presence of the number 7 throughout Williams' work testifies to his belief in the divine nature, power and potential of human beings to create. In another mimetic conjuration near the end of "Children of the Night," Williams declares:

i am the darkness that precedes the light[31]

This declaration can be traced to Gen 1:2. In an insightful analysis of darkness and light in the Old Testament, minister and theologian Octavius A. Gaba writes, "The Yahwist apparently views darkness as positive, for darkness (hosek) is where God is when the spirit of God moves over the waters prior to the creation of light."[32] Gaba concludes his analysis with the following remarks:

Re-ontologization, the systematic restoration of darkness and being dark to the being of God, is critical . . . Now is the time to rebuild and restore that which rightfully points to God and participates in being itself: darkness.[33]

This process of "re-ontologization" appears to have already occurred in the mind and work of Saul Williams. His declarative "i am the darkness" is permeated by power and creative energy. In this last example, the Bible as "conjure book" provides the very symbols by which the conjurer-poet Williams conjures within himself the power of the Divine Creator.

Conclusion

[23] Among African American urban youth, hip hop culture is vibrant and thriving. Many young people born in the 1970s and 1980s claim hip hop as the voice of their generation. Contemporary African American religious scholars would do well to raise the question: do the Bible and Christianity remain alive and well in the cultural and artistic production of the new generation of hip hop youth, just as it inspired the lives and works of earlier black artists who produced the blues, soul, and R&B? Saul Williams roots himself firmly in the hip hop genre yet defines his work as the next stage in the evolution of hip hop. As the preceding analyses of Williams' artistic projects indicate, Theophus Smith's Conjuring Culture provides a goldmine of analytical approaches that reveal the ongoing presence of the Bible as a "conjure-book." Given the biblicate character of African American culture and the rich source of images, metaphors, and figures that the Bible provides for spiritual nourishment and existential inspiration, the continued appearance of Biblical appropriations in the work of new generations of African American artists indicates the lasting and long term influence of Christianity among African Americans today. Not only do biblical narratives serve African Americans as instruments for the expression of suffering, healing, and hope, but they also provide the conjurational figures and phrases from which new, better worlds can be imagined and brought into existence.

Notes

This paper was prepared for a seminar on African American Biblical Hermeneutics, taught by Professor Allen Callahan at the Harvard Divinity School, Spring 2000. Special thanks to Professor Callahan, David Maduli, and Christine G. Cordero for their comments, insight, and encouragement. Portions of this paper were added or revised while under the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. All errors are my own.

[1] Williams, Askwith Education Forum, Harvard University, 16 February 2000.

[2] Theophus H. Smith, Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 4.

[3] Ibid., 4.

[4] Ibid., 3.

[5] Ibid., 4.

[6] Ibid., 147.

[7] Lucius T. Outlaw, "Language and Consciousness: Towards a Hermeneutic of Black Culture," Cultural Hermeneutics 1 (1974): 411, quoted in Smith, Conjuring Culture, 111.

[8] Peter Brunette, "The power of the word: Saul Williams, poet and now star in 'Slam,' wants to cast his spell," Boston Globe, 18 October 1998, sec. L, p. 9, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe

[9] Ibid., 9.

[10] Williams, Askwith Education Forum

[11] Smith, Conjuring Culture, 57-8.

[12] Williams, Askwith Education Forum.

[13] Biblical quotations marked NRSV come from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

[14] Smith, Conjuring Culture, 164.

[15] Williams, Askwith Education Forum. See also Evelyn Nieves, "SHOPPING WITH/Saul Williams: Downtown to Stardom in One Leap," New York Times, 27 September 1998, sec. 9, p. 1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe, and Peter Brunette, "The power of the word: Saul Williams, poet and now star in 'Slam,' wants to cast his spell," Boston Globe, 18 October 1998, sec. L, p. 9, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe.

[16] Smith, Conjuring Culture, 238-44.

[17] Ibid., 129-30.

[18] Williams, "The Winds' Song", The Seventh Octave, (New York: Moore Black Press, 1997), 11.

[19] James Cone, God of the Oppressed (San Francisco: Harper Collins Press, 1975), 175.

[20] James Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues (New York: Orbis Books, 1991), 103.

[21] Williams, "Luna See - Moon Eye", The Seventh Octave, 21.

[22] Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, "'Mother to the Motherless, Father to the Fatherless': Power, Gender, and Community in an Afrocentric Biblical Tradition," Semeia 47 (1989): 72.

[23] Williams, "Our Father", Amethyst Rock Star. Track 10. Universal Records. Audio CD. 2001.

[24] Gilkes, "'Mother to the Motherless, Father to the Fatherless'", 73.

[25] Williams, Askwith Education Forum.

[26] Williams, "Children of the Night," The Seventh Octave, 25.

[27] Ibid., 24.

[28] Ibid., 23.

[29] Williams, "Amethyst Rocks", The Seventh Octave, 41.

[30] "Sha Clack Clack" - but my spirit is growing/ seven by seven (40) - and "Seven Mountains" (45) are two examples found in Williams, The Seventh Octave.

[31] Williams, The Seventh Octave, 28.

[32] Octavius A. Gaba, "Symbols of Revelation: The Darkness of the Hebrew Yahweh and the Light of the Greek Logos" in The Recovery of Black Presence, eds. Randall C. Bailey and Jacquelyn Grant (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 150.

[33] Ibid., 157-58.