“Amen!” shouts the Rev. Philip Carr-Harris from a makeshift altar in Earline Patrice Park.
“Word!” chants the enthusiastic crowd before him.
And it’s at this moment you begin to suspect that this is no ordinary church service.
In celebration of its 170th anniversary, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church held a Hip-Hop Mass on Saturday at the park at Mansion Square. The service, while still structured like a traditional Episcopal service, included many street-wise adaptations, including a reading from the lyrics of rapper Tupac Shakur, a hip-hop adaptation of the 23rd Psalm and the hip-hop music of artists from local communities and around New York City.
The Mass was presided over by two celebrants: the Rev. Carr-Harris of St. Paul’s and the Rev. Kendra McIntosh, known to many as “Momma K.” The service was preceded by a well-attended community barbeque at 4:30 p.m., with a full complement of hamburgers, hot dogs and soda.
While this may be the first such event for Poughkeepsie, “this is something that has been going on for several years in the Episcopal Church,” said Carr-Harris.
The movement began in the South Bronx (also the original home of hip-hop) and Manhattan with services at Trinity Episcopal Church.
Recent media attention has brought the Hip-Hop Mass to different communities in New York, and even as far away as Florida. “I’d heard of the hip-hop service,” said McIntosh, who became involved with the movement last November and has been working with a Trinity-based group ever since. “I love innovative liturgy.”
Critics, both from within the church and from without, have complained that the hip-hop service is irreverent, that hip-hop music belongs to the streets and has no place in church. That, the two reverends agree, is missing the point.
“The partnership of street and altar, that’s definitely what Jesus was all about,” McIntosh said.
Carr-Harris added, “I think, from the point of view of the church, it makes what the church has to offer available to the community at large.”
In his sermon, Carr-Harris addressed the naysayers directly, saying, “It’s not about one or the other (tradition or modernity). It’s about the message, not the way the message is conveyed.”
Julio Herrera, the Mass’s music director, strongly agreed. Herrera’s job, which includes consulting with clergy and deciding what liturgy and songs are appropriate, isn’t always easy.
“When I got this job, I didn’t want it. I tried to give it away,” said Herrera. “But I talked to God, and … I believe it’s divinely inspired. There are a lot of ups: just look around here.”
Herrera said the best thing about the Hip-Hop Mass is its ability to reach people who wouldn’t normally go to church, particularly young people. “A lot of these kids don’t identify with the regular hymnals, so if we put in something with hip hop, they pay attention.”
That certainly is the case with 9-year-old Oanikia Meyers. She said that many kids feel that hip-hop is a voice that the church can use to reach her generation.
“We might not know the song,” she said, “but with hip-hop, we know the beat.”