The Disturbing Profane

“The Disturbing Profane is the book on hip hop that I’ve been waiting for. Elegantly written and meticulously researched, seamlessly weaving together critical theory and black studies, this work not only guides us to a new understanding of the complex relationship between the sacred and the profane; it does so by taking hip hop seriously as conceptual and theoretical interlocutor. Joseph R. Winters’s perceptive and discerning analyses of the music make this a must-read.” - Candice M. Jenkins, author of Black Bourgeois: Class and Sex in the Flesh

“As Joseph R. Winters points out, there are dimensions of our understanding of hip hop—and, by extension, our sense of religion—that can help us rethink our social and cultural worlds. Winters outlines how the sacred is manifest within hip hop culture, acknowledging its more widely embraced dimensions while privileging what he sees as the edge where disruptive and contaminated elements of the sacred are pronounced and the nature of blackness and antiblackness most amplified. Pick up and read this book to have your sense of our social world amplified and refined through the sights and sounds that define hip hop as an outlet for the ‘volatile sacred.’” - Anthony B. Pinn, author of Deathlife: Hip Hop and Thanatological Narrations of Blackness

"[Winters] speaks to the hip-hop head who wants to appreciate rappers’ deeper meanings and double entendres, and he broadens the perspective of churchgoers seeking the Divine in all areas of life. His work offers something for everyone—or at least for those who are willing to be disturbed by it.” - Jordan Burton, Presbyterian Outlook

"During an era of rising global fascism and rampant anti-Blackness, developing rapturous conceptions of the world is necessary empowerment. Winters provides us with vital tools to shatter and reimagine current ways of being." - Sean Bloemetjie, Cultural Studies