Some people think that gangster rap is a modern invention, but you can see it clearly in Genesis 4:23-24.
"Lamech said to his wives,
"Adah and Zillah! Listen to me!
You wives of Lamech, hear my words!
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for hurting me.
24 If Cain is to be avenged seven times as much,
then Lamech seventy-seven times!"" NET
It doesn't rhyme in English, but in Hebrew, a lot of the words end in the same vowel.
Lamech makes some bars about killing a man, and then claims that he is justified in doing this, because Cain (who killed an innocent man) was protected 7 times over, so Lamech (who killed someone who murked him) must therefore be avenged 77 times over. Lamech has made his own law, and his own sense of justice, just as gangster rap does.
Its interesting as well to see the difference between Lamech's bars and Adam's lyrics made before the fall,
Gen 2:23
"Then the man said,
"This one at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one will be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."" NET
Both Adam and Lamech produced culture. We humans always produce culture. We can blame the gangster rappers of the 90's for the culture they promoted, or we can recognise that what they did has been going on since Genesis 4. We all create culture. The question is, do we produce culture in line with God's word, or in line with our own twisted way of looking at the world.
