Here, we give thought to the multifaceted ways in which the changing syncretic cultural cartography of hip hop in general and rap music specifically push and force a re-thinking of religious sensibilities and the quest for life meaning. In this Introduction, we contextualize one such attempt as expressed in this journal you hold, to think religion and hip hop together in new and exciting ways.

The interrogation of cultural production by African-American scholars across fields is not a new phenomenon, however, a rigorous examination of the religious and theological contours of hip hop culture, such as rap music, are slowly beginning to take shape. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies.Īs a child of the blues, hip hop culture and rap music bring together the ‘best of both worlds’ of culture and religion respectively. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 1 reports the development of scale items.

Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support) five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotional-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion) and three scales measure coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress.

The Holy Profane by Teresa L. Reed