The gospel according to rap

Twenty-five years after his first rap album debuted, Snoop Dogg is reorienting his music, though not necessarily his lifestyle, to praising God. He announced last summer plans to release a gospel album called Bible of Love, due out in March. The album will feature mostly gospel remixes he produced and some tracks on which he raps. Last week, Snoop Dogg released the video for the album’s first single, “Words Are Few,” which shows him praying and praising in a nearly empty church sanctuary.

Snoop’s religious history includes declaring allegiance to the Nation of Islam in 2009 and professing Rastafarianism in 2012. (He claimed to be the reincarnation of reggae singer Bob Marley.) When he announced the gospel album on Instagram in June 2017, he posted a screenshot of a text message to his mom: “I’m working on a gospel Albulm [sic] moms and it sounds amazing thank u for showing me how to live and to spread the word.”

In a separate Instagram post, he grooved to gospel music as smoke puffs rose around him, a reminder of his marijuana habit. In 2013, he told a reporter for The Guardian he smoked 25 to 30 marijuana cigarettes on a “good day” and fewer on a bad day. The smoke puffs were still there when he appeared in a video for the Grammy Awards on Jan. 28.

Some critics have suggested Snoop Dogg speaks with a forked tongue, cashing in on Christian dollars while not really adopting an attitude of holiness. In “Words Are Few,” the rapper acknowledges his faith is a work in progress: “I know God is calling me / I’m not where I’m supposed to be / Sitting here smoking trees / When I should be on my knees / When my words are few.”

Snoop Dogg is not the only rapper exploring questions of faith in his lyrics of late. In his 2017 album, which won five Grammys, including best rap album, Kendrick Lamar went beyond the “blessed and highly favored” theme so popular in gospel music and explored God’s sovereignty, wrath, and judgment. In the song “Fear,” he asks, “All this money, is God playin’ a joke on me? / Is it for the moment, and will He see me as Job? / Take it from me and leave me worse than I was before?”

In an email to the site DJBooth after the album came out, Lamar explained his fear of God: “We want to hear about hope, salvation, and redemption. Though His son died for our sins, our free will to make whatever choice we want, still allows Him to judge us. … I feel it’s my calling to share the joy of God, but with exclamation, more so, the FEAR OF GOD. The balance. Knowing the power in what He can build, and also what He can destroy. At any given moment.”

Chance the Rapper, another Grammy winner, also laced his 2016 album Coloring Book with praise, fear, and acknowledgement of God. “I would never say that I’m making gospel music, but I love God. I love Jesus. And I’m super cool with saying that,” he recently told CBS News.

Add to that the pro-life message in one of Eminem’s newest tracks, “River,” and what Tyler Huckabee of The Washington Post wrote earlier this year rings true: Hip-hop is having a God moment. It’s an opportunity for Christians not necessarily to embrace rap music—the albums mentioned here still speak openly and obscenely of drugs, sex, and violence—but to pray for rappers who are feeling the conviction and call of God and for their fans, some of whom might not hear that call anywhere else.

Subdued celebration

Americans proudly cheered snowboarder Shaun White right after he won the gold medal in the halfpipe Wednesday at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Then someone handed him an American flag that he dragged along the ground, and it went downhill from there. White, the Olympics’ most decorated snowboarder, said later he fumbled with the flag as he tried to put on his gloves and get his snowboard. “I definitely didn’t mean any disrespect,” White said. Harder to explain away have been allegations of sexual harassment against him, which resurfaced at an Olympics news conference. In 2016, Lena Zawaideh, the former drummer in White’s rock band Bad Things, sued him, saying White forced her to watch pornography, made inappropriate demands about her looks, and stopped paying her salary while continuing to support the other members of the band, who were all male. When asked about the accusations by a reporter in Pyeongchang, White responded, “I’m here to talk about the Olympics, not gossip and stuff.” He later apologized and said “gossip” was a poor word choice. “Unfortunately, by his recent comments and conduct, Mr. White has minimized the problem of sexual harassment in this country,” said Lawrance Bohm, Zawaideh’s attorney. —L.L.

Music man

Vic Damone, one of the classic crooners of the 1950s, died Sunday at age 89. Damone recorded more than 2,500 songs, many of them selling more than a million records. His best-known recordings included standards such as “On the Street Where You Live,” “An Affair to Remember,” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” Damone once said he started his career trying to mimic Frank Sinatra, who later praised the baritone, saying he had “the best pipes in the business.” Damone still drew crowds in nightclubs and concerts into his 70s, before illness prompted his retirement. —Jim Henry

The Reich stuff

The Indianapolis Colts have hired the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive coordinator, Frank Reich, as their new head coach. Reich is a former quarterback who played 14 seasons in the NFL. After his retirement from the game in 1998, he went to seminary, pastored an Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church congregation in Charlotte, N.C., and served as president of Reformed Theological Seminary’s Charlotte campus from 2003 to 2006. He returned to the NFL in 2008 as quarterbacks coach for the Indianapolis Colts, where he worked with future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning. —L.L.