Religion and music help us make meaning out of life and help us cope with our experiences. Hip hop, being the second most popular genre of music, could be viewed as a powerful form of religion with many followers because many look to hip hop artists on how to live and even worship artists as idols.

Religions like Christianity and Hinduism contain a pantheon of angels, gods, and goddesses. Hip Hop is no different. There is a pantheon of rap gods including rappers like Biggie, Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Mos Def, and Eminem.

KRS-One have even written a Hip Hop bible and sees Hip Hop as a form of divinity and empowerment for those who have perhaps felt disempowered and belittled by other forms of religion. Like any religion, Hip Hop is subject to corruption. Originally Hip Hip was about unity, peace, love, and having fun. It was about uniting people and stopping violence yet now when one thinks of mainstream Hip Hop, one may think of violence, crime, materialism, the me-myself-and-I mentality, and greed. There is also a ton of controversy around Hip Hop, the illuminati and devil worship. This could be a conspiracy within a conspiracy in that this whole thing about the illuminati and hip hop could be used as a way to invalidate the success of black men and women. Or it could be the case that Hip Hop is used to influence people in a negative and destructive way. When I listen to some mainstream Hip Hop, I hear a lot preaching about materialism (sex, money, drinking, and drugs) and feel that desire fueled within myself.

Satanism as a religion is not necessarily about worshipping the devil but about worshipping one’s self and making one’s self a god. Hip Hop is known for self-aggrandizement but this can be twisted in different ways. This could lead one to self-empowerment and knowledge or unrestricted hedonism and disregard for others i.e. a dog eat dog mentality. When reviewing some of the videos on YouTube about Hip Hop and religion, there are multiple references to selling one’s soul within lyrics of famous rappers like Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Tupac, Eminem, and Kanye West. This could just be a metaphor but there is an eerie feeling induced by some of these lyrics.

In one series of videos they repeatedly showed Kanye on a radio show saying how Hip Hop is just like church and a new form of a religion with rappers as the preachers and the music as the scripture. People go to a show, raise their hands, dress up, and pay some money...just like Church.

There were surprising tidbits all along the way when diving into the topic including a Wu-Tang Clan video that shows the Wu-Tang symbol cutting off the head of Jesus, taking his spirit, then forming the members of the group. In the eyes of some black folks, Jesus could be seen as the white man’s God and a symbol of oppression which could explain why there is a large population of black folks who are Muslim. Christianity has been known for trying to convert others to the religion and imagery such as that displayed in the Wu-tang video could just be an expression of frustration caused by this exertion or there could be something more sinister about it...

All of this could be paranoia, or there could be some connection. It’s hard to deny that there is evil in the world and that music is a powerful influence on culture. Right now, Hip Hop is one of the most influential genres of music. If there are powers that be that seek to manipulate people then Hip Hop could be used as a medium for this control. Why not and who knows? There’s also the unwarranted fear and proposition from some Christians that anything not related to Christ in the practice of other forms of spirituality is something akin to devil worship.

There is much debate around this topic and tons of videos online about Illuminati conspiracies. There is even a testimony of a rapper who now goes by the name Mynista that shows how he almost sold his soul to the devil but prayed his way into freedom.

Through this investigation, I’d say that some of the content was blown out of proportion but there were some things that resonated. Artists could talk about selling their souls as a way to describe sacrificing something in order to reach a goal or to pay the bills but when one sees the levels of fame and power that some reach, one asks, are there other factors at play?