If one s primary activity is to defy death, then one s primary reality must surely be death. Stringfellow wrote long before the current hip-hop craze. He pointed to this idolatry as a primary problem in our culture, citing everything from preoccupation with war to our fear of ageing as symbols of the idolatry of death. But in the hip-hop culture, embraced by the young people in the neighborhood surrounding Azusa Christian Community, the idolatry stands stark before us, and shows us all the struggle against death, and its implications for the ageing process. Yet, one can understand the elevation of Smalls and Shakur in death, when death is not seen as an alternative to ageing, but rather as the ultimate reality.
Death is on the throne.
Ageing is not an option. Rivers, and the members of Azusa, literally have to teach young people to age, and the starting point is convincing them that they can, indeed, grow older. In the course of conversation with the Azusa member, the young man explained that he had been in a very vulnerable position as a drug dealer three years earlier. Street gangs have defined hierarchies, and when they are involved in the drug trade, their organization s structure reveals certain places of stress and danger. Street dealers are usually low on the totem pole and seldom in danger physically.