Culture Care by Makoto Fujimura

Author:Makoto Fujimura
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780830891115
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2016-12-28T13:57:19+00:00

C.J.

Our second son, C.J., was just such a child.1 I remember walking with him in the streets of New York City. Even as a young child he noticed things that I ignored, like homeless people or graffiti. He showed an early inclination to music and art, often bringing his skateboard to the edges of Manhattan and crossing into Brooklyn (well before Brooklyn was hip). He is a mearcstapa.

C.J. had, as he would readily admit, a very colorful teenage life. He struggled with his faith and his church commitments. During some dark days in his teens he violated many boundaries, and I feared at one point that I had lost him as a son. Those days were some of the most challenging of my life as a parent, but I also now recall them, as I write this, as some of the most rewarding. Even though C.J. has now “come home” in many ways, he still wrestles deeply with issues of faith and art. Today, a college graduate with degrees in music composition and philosophy, he is producing and writing his “collage” music in Seattle.

When he was about twelve, C.J. became interested in what would become hip-hop music. When he came to me with his interest, Judy and I decided to “train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6 ESV; meaning not “the way we think he should go”). I knew very little about that musical world, but we told him that he was welcome to listen to any song as long as he shared it with us and we could discuss it. (We did not give this permission to either his older brother or younger sister, although they too would grow into creative human beings. It was something only C.J. was allowed to do early.) I also arranged for a friend who was studying for a PhD in composition from Columbia University to come every Saturday and teach C.J. music theory.

I asked a pastor friend in the Newark slums if he could recommend any up-and-coming musicians. One he named was Kanye West, then an unknown from Chicago. I began to listen to West, then Eminem, Lauryn Hill, and Outkast. I never expected to be listening to explicit versions of many of their songs on my computer; I often struggled with hip-hop and the lifestyle and language choices of which the art form spoke. C.J. warned me of these things even as a young person, noting too that “non-explicit” versions lack the power and eloquence of the originals. I have come to realize that he was right.

As a mearcstapa C.J. guided me into the world of hip-hop, and he continues to do so. When he went to college, he and his girlfriend realized that the university culture offered only two options: library culture, to get straight As, or frat culture, to drink and relieve stress. There was no alternative. So C.J. began to experiment with a Friday evening gathering called “Bankwet” (spelled differently each time), with hip-hop/rap performances, poetry readings, and art.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.