Episode 110: Water to Wine Feat Pastor Shaun. J Lee

Water to Wine is the final episode of Wine & Hip Hop in 2025—and a reflection on everything this year has been about: community, leadership, and surviving the times together.

In this closing conversation, Jermaine Stone sits down with Shaun J. Lee, the seventh pastor of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. For well over a century, Mount Lebanon Baptist Church has stood as a historic anchor in the Black community in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn—a place of gathering, organizing, protection, and continuity when resources were limited and the future uncertain.

The conversation lives at the intersection of church and hip hop, examining how both have historically functioned as survival languages—spaces where people tell the truth, process hardship, and find ways to keep going. Pastor Lee and Jermaine talk about community leadership, responsibility, and what it means to hold people together during challenging times.

As the year comes to a close, Water to Wine isn’t about spectacle—it’s about endurance. About how communities survive through culture, mentorship, presence, and shared space.

This episode is the bow on a year dedicated to building community.