How would you respond if you were a famous pastor and a rapper inserted a sound bite from one of your sermons into a profane, problematic song?
Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House megachurch in Dallas faced exactly that quandary recently when rapper Jeezy spliced a 20-second segment from one of Jakes’ 2013 messages into a remixed version of the song “Holy Ghost.” The new version features Jakes preaching, “I’m under attack, but I’m still on fire. I got some chatter, but I’m still on fire. I got some threat, but I’m still on fire.” It’s followed by lyrics that include harsh language and references to drug dealing and criminal behavior.
So how did Jakes respond? By threatening legal action. A message posted Sept. 22 on the T.D. Jakes Ministries Facebook page warned, “SPECIAL NOTICE: The ‘Holy Ghost’ remix by Jeezy featuring Kendrick Lamar was produced without the knowledge or consent of T.D. Jakes, TDJ Enterprises, Dexterity Music or its associated companies. We are taking the necessary legal actions to stop the unauthorized use of T.D. Jakes’ intellectual property.”
The strongly worded notice perhaps had some effect. Since the message was posted, The Dallas Morning News reports that the video for the remix has been removed from YouTube and the track deleted from SoundCloud. The song is still posted on worldstarhiphop.com, however. Meanwhile, Def Jam and Interscope, the record labels representing Jeezy and Lamar, have not commented on the possibility of a lawsuit against them.
Others, however, have been commenting on the situation, both from a legal perspective and a spiritual one.
Los Angeles-based lawyer Jonathan Kirsch suggested that using a small portion of Jakes’ sermon might very well fall under so-called “fair use” intellectual property rules. “Generally speaking, it is ‘fair use,’ in the context of a song, to copy elements of someone else’s work in order to make a point that amounts to commentary,” he told the New York Daily News. “The notion of taking a cultural artifact, like a sermon, and using a small portion to make a comment on the role of religion in peoples’ consciousness is very similar.”
But apart from the legal considerations of the case, there’s also the question of how those listening to a sermon clip in a song will respond to it. Will it cause them to think less of the pastor involved? Will listeners associate him with the artist’s original material? Might his reputation be damaged? Or, on the other hand, are they easily able to separate an obvious sample from the balance of a song’s message? And might it actually do a listener some good to hear such sermonizing? Will it do the minister more damage to raise a ruckus?
There’s no easy or right answer to those questions, of course. But at least one cultural observer wonders whether Jakes might be doing himself —and his message—more harm than good by threatening legal action against Jeezy.
Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, whom the U.K.’s Guardian characterizes as “a hip hop intellectual,” told that outlet, “It’s an unfortunate example of the disconnect between an elder, like T.D. Jakes, who is an undeniably gifted and remarkable human being, but may be not necessarily as in touch as he should be with the currency of a younger generation.”
Which brings me back to my opening question: If they were your words being fused to the front of a song that was offensive to you, how would you respond? Would you legally challenge that unauthorized use, as Jakes has suggested he might do? Or would you just leave it alone and trust that your message might just be finding an unintended audience through a rapper’s creative, ahem, “appropriation” of it?
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