The Illuminati and Rap

Peace guys, before I go into this post I must say that this is the last post of the whole blog…and it’s quite right to look at the biggest issue in rap for the past 15 years…the idea that the Devil is running rap through the Illuminati. The Illuminati is supposedly a secret society that has been around for centuries but now allegedly have taken an interest in rap music. Could be a good idea I guess, makes sense controlling what the youth listen to right?

Since early hip-hop, rappers have been speaking about this, in the Jay-Z song D'Evils, the chorus has the lyrics, ‘Illuminati want my mind, soul and body…Secret society trying to keep their eye on me’. The second line can have a sinister double meaning, with ‘eye’ hinting at the All-Seeing Eye often a trademark attributed to the Illuminati as they are watching over literally EVERYTHING! But what is peculiar is how in music videos these symbols, such as the All-Seeing Eye, are everywhere. Take a look at this Jay-Z picture for example.

You can tell the subject of the Illuminati has been all over rap by this cool graph I found!

But several artists who allegedly are apart of this secret Devil society have spoken about the allegations; Kanye said in an interview how it doesn’t make sense for rappers to be part of it when people who control energy companies would fit suitably. He also said how sometimes with lyrics and music you have to have a compromise with record label executives, so really the artists have no full creative responsibilities. And that makes sense, like why would you make things like this so obvious?

Surely the point of a secret society is to keep things secret? This issue has been spoken about for decades in rap and I’m sure it will continue.

  

And it’s unfortunately here where I must leave, it’s been good folks I hope I’ve shown you how religion and faith has been prevalent in rap – if you have any comments feel free to drop them!!

Peace!

Is Rap destroying Faith and Religion?

What’s up family, I’ve been thinking how I could write this blog differently compared to the ones before. The ones before are cool no doubt, but I’m just thinking how I could switch things up to come up with an argument for the sake of a good debate. So I was searching and I found this very interesting article. For those who can’t be asked to check it (I’d probably be one of them) it’s Bill O’Reilly talking about how rap music is destroying faith and religion. He says the following:
‘The rap industry, for example, often glorifies depraved behaviour. That sinks into the minds of some young people – the group that is most likely to reject religion’.

Everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion but for those who know rap music know that’s soo far from the truth. Let’s analyse a few rap songs that show the opposite. 

Kendrick Lamar, the leading rapper of our time, also on the left, talks about the dangers of gang culture and violence in the song ‘I’m Dying of Thirst’, about this issue he raps ‘What are we doing? Who are we fooling? Hell is hot, fire is proven to burn for eternity’. His belief in faith actually comes in to warn the youth not to fall into the trap of a destructive life. 

Another rapper, Lauryn Hill, talks about the nature of life in her song Doo Wop (That Thing), she aims some lyrics at those people who claim to be religious but are not, she says:

‘talking out your neck, saying you’re a Christian, a Muslim sleeping with the gin’

But she always finishes the song with the philosophical line, ‘how you gonna win when you ain’t right within?’ And it’s at this point you have to go back to Bill O’Reilly’s statement...how can music like this destroy faith when really it’s propagating proper faith?! But people actually believe this kind of stuff which is sad; they would argue that rap music is the devil music… which is interesting as the next post is all about the Devil running rap music through the Illuminati!!!

God Speed!!

Islam in Rap

Hey what’s up guys, sorry for the late post I’ve been sooo caught up doing my dissertation and other essays for uni but I’ve finally got around to writing this post. As the title suggests this post will be focusing on Islam in Rap. I know I’ve already touched on the 5% Nation of Islam in rap music but this is completely different.

There a loads of Muslim rappers/producers in rap music, the likes of Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim, Lupe Fiasco and Mos Def. And to be honest you can see their faith reflected in their music.

Rakim.

The man many consider the greatest rapper of all time, spoke about how his faith affects his lyrics, the brother said, ‘’I love what I live and I live Islam, so I applied it to everything I do” and if you peep his lyrics you can understand what he means. In his song R.A.K.I.M. he begins at the beginning saying how the A in his name stands for ‘Allah who I praise to the fullest’, he finishes the song with the Quranic reference too, ‘rest assure, when I rock, dance crowds and scream, Bis-Mi-Allah A-Rahman A-Rahim’.

This saying has also been heavily incorporated in the albums of Mos Def who starts by saying Bismallah ir Rahman ir Raheem. These themes of religion ran throughout his song ‘Fear Not of Man’ where he raps, ‘Angels hold a pen keep a record in time which is passing and running like a caravan trader’. Later in the song where he talks about how he sees the wealthy and wicked running the world he says, ‘God is sufficient in disposing of affairs, gunmen and stockholders try to merit my fear but God is sufficient over plans they prepared’. This in fact a running theme throughout all this albums so if you wanna check it out via Itunes and Spotify go ahead, but please no illegal downloading…

The rapper Lupe Fiasco, in respect to his faith, did a cover song of Kanye’s Jesus Walks, called Muhammad Walks. He talks about how his faith truly is but also how it’s perceived in current world affairs. He raps:

‘G’s up along with Muhammad and Jesus. In the Quran they call him Isa, don’t think Saddam is our leader. We pray for peace, but the drama intrigues us all, so we fall for the illusions of the beast – so instead of trying to teach we show our teeth’

In fact one could say that Lupe is teaching (as the above suggests) in this song how the faith has been grossly misunderstood in light of events such as 9/11. And finding no other way to teach he resorts to the medium of rap in which he can teach, and successfully teach I reckon right?

Unfortunately, that’s all I can touch on when looking at Rap and Islam, if anyone else has any links feel free to comment.

Peace.

Rap and the Five Percent Nation of Islam

‘I was homeless, Fightin’, shootin’ dice, smokin’ weed on the corners, tryna find the meaning of life in a corona. Till the 5 percenters rolled up on a ni**a and informed him: “You either build or destroy. Where you come from?” - Jay Electronica

What’s up guys? The time has come where we start to explore movements within the art of Rap music. There was a time in Hip-Hop where the music was influenced with what was happening on the streets. And on the streets there was a collective movement based upon the spiritual, pro-black teachings of The Five-Percent Nation also known as the Nation of Gods and Earths or the Five Percenters. As the Rap mogul and entrepreneur Russell Simmons described in his autobiography, ‘during the period when the gangs I hung with in the ‘70s gave way to ‘80s Hip Hop culture, it was the street language, style, and consciousness of the Five Percent Nation that served as a bridge.’

So what is this consciousness of the Five Percent Nation that Simmons is talking about? In short the 5% Nation of Islam’s base beliefs are that each black man is God, Allah – whilst the white man is the inferior. The name 5% comes from the idea that only 5% of the world knows the truth and it is their purpose to enlighten the rest of humanity.  Perhaps the most famous follower of this belief was the late Malcolm X.

You could say that this was just a mere sociological subculture that the young oppressed black youth of America turned to, to finally have a voice in a medium that they were restricted of. As you used to peep in 90% of rap songs in the late 80s and first half of the 90s most rappers used to call each God like you heard in that Memory Lane song by Nas, ‘with side-bets, I roll a deuce, nothing below (Peace God!) – Peace God’.

And there is where I take you back to the start of this blog where the rapper Jay Electronica reflects on what his fellow hood dweller said to him, ‘you either build or destroy.’ This question, not only troubled Jay Electronica, but also troubled the youth during the 80s and 90s as the moralistic values of the Black Five Percenter conflicted with the stresses of life that the young black man was facing on the streets. This is what the rapper AZ reflected on in Nas’ Life’s a Bitch song, ‘we were beginners in the hood as 5 Percenters but something must’ve got in us cause all of us turned to sinners.’ It seemed that this newfound spirituality didn’t really last for those who fell back into the old habits of life.

Funnily enough around the years of 94, 95 and 96 this faith in the 5 Percenters fell off. But that doesn’t mean it’s totally dead, you still have the likes of Eminem and Kanye West who consider themselves a Rap God and a God respectively – but whether that has anything to do with the 5 Percenters is up to you (feel free to comment if you disagree). However, more recently the rapper Jay-Z landed himself in a little bit of controversy in wearing a 5 Perfect chain to a basketball game. So…not only did it have an effect on the lyrical side of rap but also on the fashion side. Quite profound hey!

Coming to an end of this post, what we have checked out is the influence that the 5 percent Nation had on Rap music, from around 1988 to 1996 the influence is seen, whether that was in the raps of Rakim, who Rap folks call the God Allah, or the raps of Wu-Tang Clan straight up to today in the raps of Jay Electronica. Who knows, maybe this whole movement of the 5% Nation of Islam for the young black youth was just a response to their socio-political status as they founded themselves ostracized in all walks of life. The only place that they weren’t ostracized was in the music that is Rap.

Well, hope you guys enjoyed this little exploration, anything you think about it feel free to drop it in the comments.

Rap and Black Gospel Music

Hey family, this is the first post of the exploration of religion and spirituality within Rap and Hip-Hop - as the one before was obviously the introduction. 
I feel that to understand the role of religion and spirituality in Rap it would be clever to look at the music itself. You may be thinking why, or even how, does this billion dollar industry have anything to do with religion? 
Let me kick it to you...

Rap music has more to owe to religious music than anything else, arguably. Just like Jazz and Soul, this art form sprang from the religious gospel music like a flower blossoms from a seed. This is both seen not only in the instrumentals but also the vocals. Gospel and Spiritual music often reflected words of hardships and oppression but finding a heaven in religious concepts such as ‘Zion’, for instance if you peep the well known song ‘The Gospel Train’ by the Fisk Jubilee Singers the lyrics are follows ‘Crowds at the station stand, with passport in their hand, To start for Zion’s land, be in time, be in time’. Although Zion could denote Jerusalem, for the Black oppressed people it could mean a place of toleration and freedom. 

This is where the uncanny links of rap music comes from. Where back in the day the people would sing about their pain through music and finding salvation through God - the oppressed youth of black America of the 1980s and 1990s would turn to music for exploration and in turn salvation or even in some cases they, again, turn to Jesus...

In 2004 Kanye West released probably one of his biggest songs to date, Jesus Walks. Not only is this probably the biggest gospel rap song like ever, but it was also voted on the Rolling Stones list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time"...and for a gospel song that is quite profound I'd say.

The music itself from the song is taken from an older record called ‘Walk with Me’ by the ARC Choir, where several times the choir is singing ‘Jesus walks with me’. Kanye explores many themes throughout the song, one is just speaking how Jesus walks with all, even all the sinners, he says ‘to the hustlers, killers, drug dealers even the strippers – Jesus walks for them.’ He goes on to say how even the people on welfare are walking with Jesus, whom he thinks are getting ripped off because of where they live, ‘to the victims of welfare for we living in Hell here, hell yeah – Jesus Walks for them.'

For me, what was the most important part of the song in regards to preparing this blog was where he says how record label executives and radio bosses don’t want a song about God – they want songs about sex and violence – peep what he says,

‘so here go my single dog, radio needs this, they say you can rap about anything except for Jesus. That means guns, sex, lies, videotape but if I talk about God my record won’t get played, huh?' 

The irony of this is that, I feel, even though this rap music itself owes something towards Black Gospel music, now it's become a billion dollar industry, the powers that be don't want anything to do with 'talks-of-God' - they're happy just to make more and more money. 

Even beyond the lyrics, you can just take a look at the music instrumentation and you’ll see resemblances. Traditional gospel music was very simple, the music would be based around a drum kit, piano, bass (double bass), tambourine and vocals – if you look at rap music in its early form it was very simple – the music would be based around drum kit, bass, piano (aswell as other sampled melody) and vocals. If you look DJ Premier’s music, who is arguably the greatest Hip-Hop producer of all time, he himself based his early music from the 16 bar blues. This structure of music was too seen in the early black gospel music. 

So coming to the end of his blog, the link between Black Gospel and Rap can be seen. Not only the lyrics of hardships was seen in both music but also the choice of music instrumentation – both forms of music were often very simple. 

To be honest, I could go on to show more how these two link but I think it’s time to begin to explore faith and rap through the whole 5% Nation of Islam movement and see what that brought out for the art.

Until then, peace!