Rhymes across time
“Hip-hop is layered prophetically, because you’re tying the past to the present.”
Shadrach Kabango, known as Shad, is a Canadian rapper. He has won a Juno Award for his music—the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys. He is also a journalist, having hosted the CBC radio show Q and, currently, the HBO Canada documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution, which has won a Peabody Award and an Emmy. He has long spoken openly about his Christian faith.
How do you think about the relationship between hip-hop and faith in your work?
I’m trying to make people feel better—to heal, to comfort. I love to be onstage and help people feel delighted, brought closer together. A phrase I’ve heard a lot is “complicating what’s been oversimplified and simplifying what’s been overcomplicated.” I see that as what I do: I introduce nuance and mystery, or I break things down and put them in direct, human terms. Hip-hop lends itself perhaps better to the latter. It’s a very frank and personal form. There are limits to what you can do metaphorically. People expect you to say what you mean; they expect it to make sense and be clear.
