The Evangelical Hustle: Selling Music, Saving Souls

Chapter 4 examines the evangelical hustle of Los Angeles gospel rappers—that is, the daily moves they made to manage money, morality, and musical creativity through the twin pursuits of missionizing and marketing, as well as how they “got their hustle on” for Christ instead of cash. The everyday flows and monetary exchanges involved in gospel hip hop street evangelism—the allocation of “formal” church offerings, informal “love offerings” given to artists, gospel rappers’ repeated denials of payment for their CDs and musical services, and spontaneous gestures of generosity and resource sharing—complicated purely economic notions of success and capital. In this unique spiritual economy, gospel rappers transposed words and actions from the realm of gangbanging to street evangelism.