Born I
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
July 26, 2026
Photos by Robert Lyons
What happens when a hip-hop concert becomes a meditation, a sound bath becomes a cypher, and a dharma talk is delivered over a beat? At Spirit Rock Meditation Center on Sunday, Born I answered that question.
Born I didn’t just rock a set; he expanded the possibilities of what a hip-hop performance could be. Part hip-hop, part sound bath, part dharma talk, and entirely Born I, what unfolded was unlike any concert I’ve ever experienced.
Washington, D.C.-based rapper, meditation teacher, and author Born I (Ofosu Jones-Quartey) returned to Spirit Rock as part of the meditation center’s Sacred Sounds concert series, celebrating the one-year anniversary of his genre-defying album Komorebi. While much of the evening drew from that deeply contemplative record, he also treated the audience to several unreleased tracks from his upcoming album, Kanzeon. If Komorebi established a new lane for Born I, these new songs prove he’s paving it with gold.
What makes Born I so compelling isn’t simply that he’s a Buddhist who raps about mindfulness. Plenty of artists have flirted with spirituality; Born I has built an entirely new performance language around it. Throughout the evening, guided meditations flowed effortlessly into songs. Singing bowls gave way to beats. Stories became teachings. Teachings became poems. Poems became hip-hop. There was never a sense that one element interrupted another; instead, each seemed to arise naturally from the last.
Beyond a mere concert, the evening felt more like participating in a communal practice. That practice, however, was anything but solemn.
For someone whose work is steeped in Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice, Born I possesses an easy warmth and playfully irreverent sense of humor. He had the audience laughing with candid stories from his own life, including a refreshingly honest reflection on living with OCD and his decision to begin medication.
There was no shame in the story, no dramatic reveal. Instead, it became another teaching — one about self-acceptance. Sometimes healing looks like meditation. Other times, it looks like medication. The wisdom wasn’t in rejecting one path for another, but in meeting yourself exactly where you are.
That message of radical self-compassion has become Born I’s signature. His mantra — “You are enough” — echoes through his music, his books, and his meditation teachings. Yet hearing it spoken between songs, surrounded by silence rather than applause, gave it an entirely different weight.
Perhaps the evening’s greatest surprise, though, wasn’t on stage.
It was in the audience.
Looking around Spirit Rock’s Great Hall, I saw a crowd that didn’t resemble the stereotypical hip-hop audience. There was no streetwear, no oversized tees, or sagging jeans. Instead, I saw yoga pants and Flower of Life tattoos. These were meditation practitioners, retirees, couples, hippies, yogis — all versions of people who were spiritually inclined. And every single one of them was with him.
They laughed. They reflected. They closed their eyes during the meditations. They nodded along to the beats. And whenever Born I dropped a particularly resonant truth — which was often — soft murmurs of recognition rippled through the room, that kind of involuntary “mmm” that says, yes… I’ve felt that too.
Born I told SF Sonic that many attendees often approach him and admit they weren’t sure what to expect, but that the performance ended up being a healing and transformative experience for them. They especially resonate with his emphasis on self-compassion, and they find his vulnerability empowering.
Of course, hip-hop has always been capable of profound storytelling, spiritual inquiry, and vulnerability. But Born I has carved out a space that feels distinctly his own, one where lyricism becomes loving-kindness practice, where mindfulness is wrapped in rhyme and a beat can become every bit as meditative as the ringing of a crystal bowl.
There were moments of the evening when I felt the same quiet opening I experience reading Rumi: that subtle softening of the heart that happens when language goes beyond just language and becomes a tender act of love. Also like Rumi’s poetry, Born I’s lyrics themselves feel like a form of spiritual practice, a vehicle for awakening as much as artistic expression, illuminating the inner life and inviting listeners toward greater compassion, presence, and self-understanding.
Yet despite the depth of the material, the evening never drifted into pretension. Born I remains disarmingly grounded, carrying himself with the same spiritual swagger that allows him to drape himself in gold chains, flash a gold grill whenever he laughs, and rock a self-sewn Rakusu — the bib-like robe worn by Zen practitioners — without the slightest hint of contradiction. In his world, wisdom and style don’t compete with one another; they dance together.
As the performance came to a close, I found myself struggling to identify what, exactly, I had just witnessed. It definitely wasn’t just a concert. It wasn’t merely a meditation. And it wasn’t simply a sound bath or a dharma talk. It was something else entirely. In an era when so much art feels determined to fit neatly into existing categories, Born I is quietly creating a new one.
And judging by the laughter, the stillness, and the unmistakable sense of connection that lingered in the room long after the final note had faded, he’s not the only one who’s been waiting for it.
If you missed this one-of-a-kind experience, you’ll have another chance to catch Born I in San Francisco at The Dharma Collective on August 6.
