Throughout the history of hip-hop, rappers have acknowledged a higher power than themselves.
The members of Run-DMC experienced a spiritual rebirth in the early 1990s, and Run ultimately was ordained Reverend Run.
Nas has been one of the most vocal about God: He named his 1996 album It Is Written and his 2001 LP God's Son.
Tupac touched on religion throughout his career, making records like "Lord Knows," "I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto" and "Thugz Mansion."
In his song "Jesus Walks," Kanye West raps:
"They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes
But if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?
Well let this take away from my spins
Which will probably take away from my ends
Then I hope this take away from my sins
And bring the day that I'm dreaming about
Next time I'm in the club everybody screaming out."
In his song "Pray to the Lord," Lil Wayne raps:
"Yeah and every time I see the sunshine
I drop down and give thanks at least one time"
Hip Hop has and will always serve as a means of hope and even prayer. Hip Hop is an expression of culture and experience and emotion. We might go on to even call it a beacon of hope for some. Karl Marx once said "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." In this sense, Religion and Hip Hop go hand in hand.
Puff Daddy or P. Diddy once stated an interesting viewpoint on Hip Hop culture that agrees with Marx's statement, "I always relate hip-hop to our old Negro spirituals," he says. "They were sung in the cotton fields to help us get by, to help us not kill ourselves by going crazy [under] the worst oppression in the world. The music, the soulfulness, the spiritualness expressed in song helped us to get through another day. That's the same impact hip-hop has had on this generation. People could try to undermine it, but it's honestly the truth. Hip-hop has helped us make it through our life in the inner cities."