{"id":5811,"date":"2006-01-04T22:42:35","date_gmt":"2006-01-04T22:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/rap-of-redemption.html"},"modified":"2006-01-04T22:42:35","modified_gmt":"2006-01-04T22:42:35","slug":"rap-of-redemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/rap-of-redemption.html","title":{"rendered":"Rap of Redemption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inmates reach out -and are reached.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

The lyrics of the "Rap of Redemption" were created by a maximum-security inmate, Essex Sims, at Lansing Correctional Facility, with the arrangements done by the East Hill Singer’s conductor, Elvera Voth. The idea of mixing the chants of the third century with modern rap was Voth’s.<\/p>\n

"I wish I’d never hurt you, hurt you," Sim’s lyrical refrain proclaims.<\/p>\n

The Gregorian chants are the "Kyrie" and the "Angus Dei." The text of the "Kyrie" means "Lord have mercy," and the text of the "Agnus Dei" says "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us."<\/p>\n

"Essex was written up in the Lawrence Journal World as being a rapper," Voth said. "He is a talented poet. I thought it would be interesting to combine this latest form of musical expression with the earliest form of musical chants from the third century, so while he is rapping his remorse, we are singing, underneath, very softly, a Gregorian chant."<\/p>\n

Many of the inmates had never listened to Gregorian chants before this experience.<\/p>\n

"It has become a favorite thing to sing," Voth said. "It has taken a hold of them. Part of what we do is sacred music and part is not. This is not a church concert. We have a large variation of music. For every piece that we do, an inmate gets up and talks about his life and where he is now. It allows the congregation to see these men as individuals. I have gotten calls from all over the country from people who are really interested in seeing it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inmates reach out -and are reached. The lyrics of the "Rap of Redemption" were created by a maximum-security inmate, Essex Sims, at Lansing Correctional Facility, with the arrangements done by the East Hill Singer’s conductor, Elvera Voth. The idea of mixing the chants of the third century with modern rap was Voth’s. "I wish I’d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nRap of Redemption - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/rap-of-redemption.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rap of Redemption - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Inmates reach out -and are reached. The lyrics of the "Rap of Redemption" were created by a maximum-security inmate, Essex Sims, at Lansing Correctional Facility, with the arrangements done by the East Hill Singer’s conductor, Elvera Voth. The idea of mixing the chants of the third century with modern rap was Voth’s. "I wish I’d…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/rap-of-redemption.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-01-04T22:42:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rap of Redemption - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/rap-of-redemption.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rap of Redemption - Via Media","og_description":"Inmates reach out -and are reached. The lyrics of the "Rap of Redemption" were created by a maximum-security inmate, Essex Sims, at Lansing Correctional Facility, with the arrangements done by the East Hill Singer’s conductor, Elvera Voth. The idea of mixing the chants of the third century with modern rap was Voth’s. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}