God, According to Hip-Hop
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy
(This is part 1 of a 3 part series about the intersection of God & hip-hop. Here’s pt. 2 and pt. 3. Hope they are all a blessing!)
I’m conflicted about Kanye’s recent… conversion. It’s honestly weird for me to admit because, in lieu of all of his crazy shenanigans, I’ve always been interested in Kanye as “celebrity.” And I love him as an artist. He’s like a more interesting and more intelligent Trump. And his support, ish, of our current president is just the tip of the iceberg of his absurd antics.
I do appreciate his more frank openness about his bipolar condition, and his talent is always apparent, even on his crappy cds.
But the thing I’ve always enjoyed most about Kanye is his direct mentions of God throughout his career. From “Jesus Walks” to “Jesus is King,” to wearing a crown of thorns to comparing himself to God as if he were a god, the megalomania on display is a rife place for honest introspection and thorough self examination for the listener. We might not ever compare ourselves to God in this way, but we definitely think our opinion is more insightful than God’s at times if we are honest.
Yet Kanye is one of many MCs not afraid to mention God. Chance the Rapper, Tupac Shakur, J Cole, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Kid Cudi is just my list of beloved rappers who have songs with direct mentions, praises, and laments to God. Other genres may have God in their music, but hip hop is often the most blatant and overt by far when compared to other famous genres.
So then, what does a genre birthed from oppression have to say about God? What can one nerdy white guy learn from predominantly black MCs about the King of Kings? And why don’t other musical genres, contemporary worship itself included, have anywhere near the nuance of variance about how God relates to society?
2011. Post break-up of the first fling I ever had. Sad, sad times. I had bought her the Snapple she liked, talked all about her hard and confusing relationship with her father. I even kissed her on her head, not on the lips, post our first “basketball” date after walking her home in an effort to be “sweet” and “respectful.”
Yet the end was nigh. It was officially over. And it was crushing this insecure, frustrated late teen, a one week engagement though it was.
Thank God for Scott.
Who’s Scott? Scott is Kid Cudi. The awkward AND cool MC from Ohio who wrote lyrics as if he were living my life, even though he was a black dude from the Midwest and I was a white kid from the left coast.
Listening to Man on the Moon 1 & 2 was like peering into an alternate universe where I was a struggling biracial kid growing up with a single mom. Further, if there is any rapper I can 100% confirm is a type 4 on the Enneagram, it’s Cudi. Look at the track “Man on the Moon” or “These Worries” for confirmation of my hypothesis.
It’s weird how a good artist carries the weight of your emotion with you if just for three to four minutes. If they are really good, they might even do it for a full hour. And with Cudi, it was as if he really was writing for me specifically. Hell, he even writes for “all the other kids like me” on “Mr. Rager” before the first verse even starts.
What does Scott have to say about God? In Man on the Moon 1, he has an ongoing internal battle with the Devil. His negative thoughts and feelings keep him hostage, and he struggles with helplessness as the devil keeps trying to ‘rip out his soul’ in “Heart of a Lion.” But his best song on God, sampling “The Funeral” by Band of Horses, is “The Prayer.” The impetus of the tune is how Scott both hopes and knows his rapping is all about connecting with the outcasts, and how he if he died he wouldn’t want to be remembered for “apple bottom jeans,” a reference and diss to another meaningless club song of the time.
This song was a gateway for a profound word from God. He used the groundwork of the message, in fact, to fuel my now revitalized faith in God. He did more with a four minute song from a stoner and “sinner” than hundreds of sermons from established preachers.
It didn’t end with Cudi. His career sort of tapered, although I’ll always appreciate what his music did for me during those hard times in my life. Kung fu Kenny, however, only seems to get better with every release.
Poverty is mentioned 300 times in the Bible. Nine times in the book of Leviticus God offers accommodations for the poor and alien among the Israelites. Sixteen times the Psalmists note God’s care for the poor, or His love of those who care for the poor.
I wasn’t really taught these growing up, though. I knew a lot of verses in Proverbs about stewarding wealth, however. In particular, how dutiful the ant was and how lazy the sluggard was. Working hard was to be a good Christian. Or was it a good American? I always get confused.
Although never stated explicitly, the implicit message was, especially with a hyper focus on dutiful investing and hard work, and a particular ignoring of the 300 mentions of poverty, that poor people were poor because they were lazy. God helps those who help themselves, right?
This rang hollow from the start, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve all but seen this thinking as heresy or at the very least a complete disregard for the character of God.
The idols of the perfect and ideal marriage, monetary comfort and security, and the pedigree of letters after your name are all but embraced within much of cultural Christianity. God loves to bless in these ways, especially if you look a certain way, vote a certain way, display the flag a certain way outside your white picket fence.
Yet what does this have to with hip hop? How does it connect to Kendrick Lamar?
Let’s start with the first Kendrick, 2Pac.
It’s kinda sacreligious to call Pac a second Kendrick. It’s probably better to say Kendrick is a second Pac. He does appear posthumously on To Pimp a Butterfly in the most chill inducing music moment I’ve ever had in my entire life. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was baptized in his shirt. And in his name.
Now that’s sacrilegious.
Indeed though, my second and more adult baptism was seen by several hundred people. And as I rose from the waters, All Eyez On Me was both a literal and figurative reality as Pac’s face on my shirt was shown to hundreds of mainly white people.
It’s my brother Zack’s fault that I love a rapper who has been dead (allegedly) for twenty-four years. I remember the first time he played “Changes” for me. Yes it’s a cover of Springsteen. Yes it was released post mortem. But it’s a much better version of the song. Let’s just be honest.
I love how his passion is evident in every line he writes. I’d argue Kendrick is a better lyricist, but there’s no one with more intensity than Shakur, as far as infamous rappers go. Yet often passion in hip hop is assumed to be evident only in anger. But in “Keep Ya Head Up,” 2Pac shows raw introspection and genuine empathy for the plight of black women in romance and mothering. As he does in “Brenda’s Got a Baby.” And “Dear Mama.”
However, he also wrote “I Get Around.” He also had many other similar hit singles about sexual conquest. He also had many famous songs seemingly endorsing violence.
Why would I listen to him, then? What would a good ole Christian boy, a white one to boot, learn from a deceased and polarizing black MC from the 90s?
I majored in sociology. I’m fascinated by how society works. Or, more often than not, how it doesn’t work. I really care about the downtrodden and marginalized. This is something I learned early from my mom; how you treat the poor in your community is reflective of who you are as a person.
2Pac grew up in poverty. His world was of a tangible lack of resources and systemic oppression by institutions designed to keep black men behind bars, dead, or stuck without opportunity for advancement. This he wrote about, rapped about, railed about.
During his time in the early to mid 90s, lawmakers were concerned about the rise of “gangsta” rap. They were concerned about its troubling influence on the youth and it’s encouraging of youth violence. In reality, however, they were most concerned that black male advancement was becoming viable by those same black males calling out systems that were causing them to remain in poverty through penalizing petty crime, waging a war on drugs (introduced by the federal government), and brushing police brutality under the rug. 2Pac is famous for his adage “thug life,” but what many people don’t know is that he felt he was diagnosing a problem, not promoting its advancement. In other words, this was his reality as a black man, and he would not sugar coat it or dance around it by rapping about a world that didn’t exist for him. He told the truth about society, about hip hop, about himself. He was layered, complex, sinful, and inspiring.
It’s why I love him.
I see how he parallels with Jesus Himself and diagnosing the problems of Israel during the reign of Rome. I see the sexual ambiguity of 2Pac as similar to the sexual ambiguity of David. And I see 2Pac’s ongoing struggle between promoting peace and violence comparable to so many prophets in the Old Testament.
Simply put, 2Pac’s songs, and any good, real hip hop is beautiful because it tells the truth. It does not talk about realities that aren’t reality. It does not tell happy endings if happy endings don’t exist. And it will not be quieted or suppressed by outside forces desiring to make an America again that was never an America to begin with.
To Pimp a Butterfly is a weird cd, to put it mildly. There are skits, monologues, interviews, and a lot of other bizarre things Kendrick pulls off by sheer ingenuity and intention. The premise is obvious in the title of the cd; black greatness, particularly in the arts, is only seen as beautiful when the cocoon of poverty and institutional oppression is already overcome. The caterpillar isn’t cared about; nobody wants to see a caterpillar that never gets a chance to cocoon and transform. Everyone prefers a happily ever after. Yet throughout the album, he shows us how vital and wonderful and challenging and heartbreaking the caterpillar stage is.
But enough blabbering about it; the cd is excellent. Yet the first few listens flew over my thick, privileged head. It was only when I intentionally listened to the album, without distraction or interruption, that Kendrick spoke to me. Or, rather, I listened to Kendrick.
Throughout the skits, Lamar, just like Cudi, describes an ongoing battle with Lucy, ie Lucipher. This proves, again, the greatness of the genre, that any MC can describe, in great poetic fashion, the struggles of spiritual oppression, on top of all other forms of oppression they experience.
But the moment that made me cry, and not tear up but full on man sob, was during “Mortal Man.” After the close of the music on the track, Lamar summarizes the whole cd in a short sermonette. And then he starts to interview someone who remains nameless and voiceless. But 2Pac’s words are too deep and too raw to not be noticed immediately by a passionate fan.
It was when he said, “all good things come to those who stay true” that my emotional dam burst. And these two guys hailing from California, two black rappers enduring more hardship than I ever could in America as a white guy, connected directly to me, spoke a blessing over me, fully affirmed my desire to take care of the least of these.
I always want to tell the truth. This I have learned from many stories in the Bible. In particular, Jesus and His stories and His kingdom. And a lot of times He speaks to me through modern prophets, many of whom are prolific, talented, and honest MCs. I learn the most from and about teachers of God when they are honest and struggling. The words of excelling go-getters do literally nothing for me. So many Christian authors, singers, and teachers do not help my walk with Christ at all. Because they are more interested in reinforcing an agenda, and not in telling the truth.
Yet Cudi, and then 2Pac, and then Kendrick, told the truth of their experiences, and told the truth of their experiences with God. The good, the bad, and the ugly, which makes them all beautiful.
The next guy who told me the truth which made me cry is a different apostle from Chicago not named Kanye. Discovered by him though, nonetheless.
“Ultralight Beam” is probably my favorite song by Kanye. Like many other modern hip hop songs, it is all over the place in the most delightful way.
But when Chancelor Bennett came on and said his piece? Something magical happened to me.
I talk about Chance all the time. My friends are probably sick of it. And yet, I remember talking to a friend about how the rapper feels like a very distant cousin. In a spiritual sense, anyway.
Coloring Book has so many good songs about God. Overt ones like “Blessings” and “How Great.” Subtle ones like “Same Drugs” and “All We Got.”
I didn’t like his next release as much. It was like a Dark Knight Rises after a Dark Knight. Impossible to beat perfection.
Yet one song that has constantly been on repeat, my favorite song about God on my “Holy Jams” playlist, isn’t a worship song. Isn’t U2 sounding. Isn’t from Hillsong or Bethel.
“Town on a Hill,” my favorite ‘God, According to Hip-Hop’ song, reminds me how much God loves me. Coming from someone who got his girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock, smokes weed, and uses colorful language only increases its meaning and power for me.
Great hip hop, along with all other good art, points me back to God. Reminds me why I wake up and do what I do. Inspires me to write what I write. Challenges me to change and repent when I need to change and repent.
Wonderful, isn’t it, that even after inner city schools stopped funding music classes, a marginalized community kept making songs without an instrument or a microphone. Awesome, isn’t it, that in spite of overwhelming adversity, the greatness of a culture could not be suppressed completely. A miracle, too, that God can redeem anything and speak through anybody to spread His kingdom and reveal to a broken world how good of a God He is.
God, according to hip hop, is a God of mercy and justice.