Across the bridge in the South Bronx, Father Timothy Holder, 51, a white Episcopalian minister from Tennessee, runs the
Hip-Hop eMass, which was founded as a summer program for the youth of the community.
Incidentally, Holder started eMass with Walker but the two separated due to "theological differences."
Poppa T, as he's affectionately referred to, rocks a shiny "blinged out cross" over his black robes, and says he had to educate himself on the culture of hip-hop, now his main ministry.
"Jesus was not preaching to the elite, he was preaching to the down and outcast, the rag tag, the boys from up in Galilee and the girls who were following him," he says. "And that's revolutionary. It's death defying. But I have to say, there's nothing more powerful. Hip-hop talks it real. And if the church wants to be real and not plastic, then we will hear the cries of our children."
Over the last three years, Poppa T has taken his eMass around the country (to over 25,000 congregants, according to his estimates) and has completed a CD ("And the Word Was Hip-Hop") as well as published a beautiful
Hip Hop Prayer book that puts a new spin on ancient words:
Psalm 23 reads in part:
"The Lord is all that/I need for nothing/He allows me to chill/He keeps me from being heated/and allows me to breathe easy..." All prayers are ended with "Amen" and then "Word!"
Lloyd "Paradox" Gonzales, 34,who occasionally attends the eMass, keeps it simple when asked why he raps in church.
"I'm a rapper. And I was a rapper before I was a Christian. And that's my talent, that's my skill."
Poppa T says he has gotten some flack from his congregation -- "I have been called
a racist because I would employ hip-hop to so-call enslave the children of my community in hip-hop. So there's some very deep feelings." But he adds, all in all he has been educated from the experience.
Walker dismisses such talk as small mindedness.
"There are the purists and the traditionalists who say they know God and have all these rules and these traditions and all these laws," he says. "Those are cool and fine, but you can't put God in a box. He's too powerful, he's too awesome; you don't know him. We are all working for the same team."
Says gospel hip-hop producer Chris "Rock" Belmont, 26, who has been attending Hip Hop eMass for two years and travels frequently with Poppa T: "Church people have a lot of rules. Like one big rule is covering your head in church or women wearing pants in church. But it's a tradition, and I would respect people if they just said it was that instead of saying it's a sin.
"Are you mad at the service because of the form or are you mad at it because it's not showing God's love?" queries Rock. "Is it about the form or is it about God?"
