Immortal Technique: "You see, man made God in his own image, culture, language and his own limits. Even his own spirit, so he could fool other men into believing in his own gimmicks..."
Hip Hop and Religion
- Thread starter ImmortalTech
- Start date
lol.. you definitely never lived in the inner city. I dont know where some of u get these ideas. But let me break down some misconceptions about inner city youth and dudes that live that hip hop culture or are deeply entrenched in that 'gangster lifestyle'.
And this is going to stray off topic, but I just find it hilarious reading hip hop message forums, and then contrasting it with what I see everyday.
a) I have never in my entire life met a single inner city youth that is an athiest. Not to say there isn't any, I personally have never come across one.
b) I have met several that are rebellious to their religion... but never have I met one that blatantly disrespects religion in general.
c) I have never met anybody that 'beats up the kids that go to church'. lol
d) I've actually seen dudes get fucked up BAD for disrespecting religion.. try going to some Somali blocks in T.O and talking about Islam, or random projects and dissing Christians.
e) I dont know where ur from, but the hoods are pretty much filled with people that are conscious about religion, whether they practice it or not thats a different story.
f) this is completely off topic, but people disrespecting their mothers and shit... That's a BIG no no, for most inner city youth. I've seen kids get whooped hard for shit like that. And then u get these eminem prototypes telling their mother to fuck off and shit :amazed:
.. and finally. Hip Hop has nothing to do with religion? Are you sure? hmm Rakim? Wu Tang Clan? I wont go too deep into history or dig in the crates and give u guys examples of how u are absolutely wrong. But if you honestly do not think that Religion has played a MAJOR role in hip hop, ur absolutely nuts....
You guys keep going on as if I'm talking about gospel rap or something. I'm not talking about that at all. I was talking about an entertainers personal choices. But at the same time defending artists that arent afraid to dive into the topic of religion or spirituality.. That in no way means, I support artists that preach their religion on every song.
And even the people talking against me are saying they like artists like nas, bizzy bone, tupac, wu tang, etc. So basically u agree with me, that its cool when artists can get into those topics (without being a gimmick) its just that u dont wanna admit it cuz it seems some of u juts have a personal vendetta against the word religion.
... hahha peace yo... I dont know why I keep pursuing this topic.. but its nice to see some discussion on streethop again, no?
It doesn't matter. That's not what aron is saying. Even though all the youth believe in God, almost NONE go to church sunday and they laugh at the kid who does.
maybe not beat up, but gets made fun of.
Yet I bet more Somalians listen to gangsta rap than that Knaan dude or whats his name...Somalians and there's a ton in my area and where I went to school...the somalians who embraced this "gangsta rap" lifestyle are the biggest hypocrites ever...they preach about islam and shit but break all five pillars of islam DAILY...
I grew up in the inner city. I was never religious and I know a ton of people that weren't either. But it'd be a stretch to say we were atheist, because, we were, to use your word, the youth.
Being young means you probably haven't thought much about those kind of topics. I know I hadn't when I was a teenager.
So we were agnostic at the time (ie didn't necessarily believe, but didn't necessarily not believe either), but not atheist.
People that grow up in the inner city are at a disadvantage when it comes to the truth. In this case I'm talking about the truth being that there is no god, no gods, no nothing.
That's the truth, but you won't learn that in the school system (either public OR private) and you won't have access to the information that allows you to free yourself from the bullshit religion society that most of us in the western world are unwittingly indoctrinated into and most never have the opportunity to learn enough to free themselves from it.
Religion is a disease on humankind. It's a virus that is halting progress.
[youtube]VA2kaB8OucE[/youtube]
Watch this video from 2.00-2.30.
It's a clip from Family Guy, and they get it so right. Just, bang on the mark. Only, we're still in the dark ages when it comes to repression of science due to asshole religious fuckheads.
Because I don't wanna hear shit thats preachy. They put themselves on a moral pedestal thinking theyre all holy and sh*t, and their music implies this whole notion of "you can be like me" which is condoscending.
Jin is a faggot. Trying to creap back up into relevance by targetting a different market because he couldn't make it commercially with his "Learn Chinese" rubbish.
Jin is a faggot. Trying to creap back up into relevance by targetting a different market because he couldn't make it commercially with his "Learn Chinese" rubbish.
Jin's my homie. I met him a number of times. I supported him and bigged him up in the UK even prior to his Freestyle Friday run when nobody knew who he was. I gave promo copies of "Learn Chinese" to a few influential DJ's I know.
But, yeah, he absolutely jumps on trends. He always has, and even though I was a fan....I stopped caring about what he was doing about 3 years ago. It just wasn't interesting any more. He's fairly one-dimensional, so he does gimmicky things (like when he "quit" rap for the publicity, then he did an album in Chinese, now he's religious).
Shame. Cos he's a nice guy. But I can't co-sign this shit any more.
.
I never said rappers aren't allowed to talk about anything. A rapper can talk about whatever he wants, but don't expect me to listen to everything. And to answer your question about faith:
I've never questioned my faith, I grew up in a non religious environment and have never believed in a god. I've never sat in a church, I've never witnessed a religious ceremony. I've never been religious and nor do I ever want to be. When looking at the world around me that does not sound like reality. I simply have nothing to reflect on when i listen to that type of music. I've read parts of the bible, and for the life of me I cannot fathom why people would believe such fiction. Sure it's well written fiction, but still fiction none the less.
And don't ever say its not for me to question your faith or tell you your faith is wrong. That is such a fucking bullshit cop out. In fact that attitude is part of the reason why this world is so fucked.
No disrespect meant, because there are obviously other factors involved. But how many of them have done something with their lives thats worth talking about? Very few probably. How many of those are gang members or affiliates? How many sell drugs? How many steal?
I never said rappers aren't allowed to talk about anything. A rapper can talk about whatever he wants, but don't expect me to listen to everything. And to answer your question about faith:
I've never questioned my faith, I grew up in a non religious environment and have never believed in a god. I've never sat in a church, I've never witnessed a religious ceremony. I've never been religious and nor do I ever want to be. When looking at the world around me that does not sound like reality. I simply have nothing to reflect on when i listen to that type of music. I've read parts of the bible, and for the life of me I cannot fathom why people would believe such fiction. Sure it's well written fiction, but still fiction none the less.
And don't ever say its not for me to question your faith or tell you your faith is wrong. That is such a fucking bullshit cop out. In fact that attitude is part of the reason why this world is so fucked.
No disrespect meant, because there are obviously other factors involved. But how many of them have done something with their lives thats worth talking about? Very few probably. How many of those are gang members or affiliates? How many sell drugs? How many steal?
Well if thats the case then basically everything I've said doesn't apply. From the way you posted I thought you were specifically talking gospel rap. When people like Nas, Wu tang, Bizzy, DMX, etc. talk about god I do not mind, to me, as in my interpretation of it, is that it's figuratively speaking. I'm sure at one point we have all wished there was a god, that I can relate to. Like Casey has been saying, an artist can believe in whatever the fuck they want. That doesn't take away from what they do. It's when they start trying to preach and force it down your throat that i stop listening.
... hmm never questioned faith.. never reflected on religion.. yet u picked up the bible and read parts of it? Could you please tell me ur motive behind finding a bible, picking it up, opening it, and reading the words then?
I'll answer ur questions in order
Everyone on the planet has done something with their lives thats worth talking about... so I would say all of them
How many are gang members or affiliated? I dont know, never counted them.. I've been affiliated for most parts of my life, and still am more or less, but only by association. I dont believe in that bull shit no more.. but I dont see what that has anything to do with the topic
How many sell drugs or how many steal? I dont understand the relevance of your question, unless ur asking me to dry snitch, i really dont get it. Oh wait, ur basically asking me how many of them sin.. well I believe every human being on the planet sins, so I'd say all of them
.. but what exactly was the relevance of all those questions? I just answered em for the hell of it
K go ahead, tell me my beliefs are wrong and urs are right
And then I'll tell you, no mine are right and urs are wrong, and we can go on forever, it'll b fun... makes a whole lot of sense huh? Athiest claim to be oh so fucking rational all the time, yet their whole ideology is based on a simple fallacy.
"The absence of evidence in not the evidence of absence."
.. but hey, "prove god exists" is what you'll hear every time.. or maybe since you (the athiest) always claim to be the intelligent amongst us. Please 'PROVE that god does NOT exist"
... hmm you cant can u? Soooo I Guess I cant prove you wrong nor can you prove me wrong, nor can I convince you, nor can u convince me. Funny cuz I was just saying that you dont have the right to tell me I'm wrong nor do I have the right to tell you ur wrong... when it comes to the issue of FAITH.
But for some reason, my attitude got blamed for fucking up the world... hmmm its only rational I guess.
Holy fucken, shit, Thank you.. Maybe I need to be more clear next time or I need to add some sort of crazy disclaimer.
Its crazy to me that this has turned into a religious debate.
I wouldnt listen to muhfuckers forcing shit down my throat either.
btw I'm done beating the dead horse. My original post was obviously taken the wrong way, and this turned into a religion debate.. lets save that shit for WoW. And lets get some more interesting hip hop discussions going on in streethop
peace!
Born and raised actually. I'm not tyring to brag about it.
And Sofi is right, thats not what I was saying.
And like i said when I made the post, I'm gonna sound ignorant...cus that's not necessarily what I believe. I was just trying to generalize for the sake of the argument
The bible is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand literature, western literature to be specific.
The point is to show that just because people believe something does not mean it's right. See, in my opinion, if you truely believe something you don't do things to contradict that belief daily.
My beliefs are based on scientific evidence. Religious beliefs (read: not yours specifically) are based on blind following. That is the problem. You're right I cannot conclusively prove god does not exist, yet I can provide a whole fuck ton of evidence to prove evolution is in fact a fact. I can provide just as much evidence to show the Earth is a whole lot older than religious scripts claim. That is the difference between our beliefs. In fact I encourage people to question my belief. That is the beauty of science, it's constantly challenging and expanding on our view of literally everything.K go ahead, tell me my beliefs are wrong and urs are right
Athiest claim to be oh so fucking rational all the time, yet their whole ideology is based on a simple fallacy.
"The absence of evidence in not the evidence of absence."
.. but hey, "prove god exists" is what you'll hear every time.. or maybe since you (the athiest) always claim to be the intelligent amongst us. Please 'PROVE that god does NOT exist"
... hmm you cant can u? Soooo I Guess I cant prove you wrong nor can you prove me wrong, nor can I convince you, nor can u convince me. Funny cuz I was just saying that you dont have the right to tell me I'm wrong nor do I have the right to tell you ur wrong... when it comes to the issue of FAITH.
But for some reason, my attitude got blamed for fucking up the world... hmmm its only rational I guess.
hip-hop and religion are two different things and some people (let's take jin in this case) may want to merge the two together.
people may love one, both or neither. and therefore we can agree that whether combined or not, whatever the "product", it will be catered to different audiences.
let's take eminem for example. a lot people say all he does is swear in his songs. i say that the swearing complements what he is trying to express because without the meaning in it (aside from vocabulary), the picture he is trying to paint would not be as effective if it wasnt realistic to what he intended to conjure up.
moving on from this we can say that people want to express themselves and choose to do it through arts, in the form of music, be it hip-hop, rock, R&B or any genre.
Thus we can conclude that Jin intends to express his new found belief through what he is renowned to do, i.e. rap, musical artist because it is the most effective way he can express his experiences.
and yes, to an extent this might be for commercial purposes (publicity) but if that was the case then rapping about what kind of things you hear on the radio would be the most commerical because it would take him down the "commercial" route along with everyone else.
so if he is expressing himself in that manner, how can we blast him for doing so because he is doing something he loves and is getting on with it. just like we may love acting, writing, singing, reading, playing sport and participating in other hobbies or pursuing our careers the way we want to.
people may love one, both or neither. and therefore we can agree that whether combined or not, whatever the "product", it will be catered to different audiences.
let's take eminem for example. a lot people say all he does is swear in his songs. i say that the swearing complements what he is trying to express because without the meaning in it (aside from vocabulary), the picture he is trying to paint would not be as effective if it wasnt realistic to what he intended to conjure up.
moving on from this we can say that people want to express themselves and choose to do it through arts, in the form of music, be it hip-hop, rock, R&B or any genre.
Thus we can conclude that Jin intends to express his new found belief through what he is renowned to do, i.e. rap, musical artist because it is the most effective way he can express his experiences.
and yes, to an extent this might be for commercial purposes (publicity) but if that was the case then rapping about what kind of things you hear on the radio would be the most commerical because it would take him down the "commercial" route along with everyone else.
so if he is expressing himself in that manner, how can we blast him for doing so because he is doing something he loves and is getting on with it. just like we may love acting, writing, singing, reading, playing sport and participating in other hobbies or pursuing our careers the way we want to.
Life is short and I only have time for progressive, logical, forward thinking people. Religion does not fit into that.
I'm not gonna believe that you have good business sense, or make wise, well-thought out decisions if you're religious. It doesn't make any kind of sense.
You believe in something that does not exist and that there is no evidence for. You may as well believe in fairies and dragons. To me, you're a lunatic. You haven't moved forward as a human since the fucking Dark Ages. You put trust in something you have no control over. When something good happens, you attribute to it your faith. When something bad happens, you console yourself by attributing it to your faith like it has some deep fucking meaning by something better than you and you don't have the capability to understand it. Sorry, that's bogus and your demeaning yourself.
I control my life. I control my actions. I control my destiny. Something good happens, I've worked to make it happen. Something bad happens, it's a shame, and if possible I do everything within in my power to ensure it doesn't happen again.
I believe in karma, but karma is not a spiritual thing, it's logic. You shit on people and eventually someone will shit on you. You live your life on compassionate grounds and people will show compassion and empathy to you.
Also, if you eat meat, and you also claim to be religious, you are a hypocrite and a moron, since pretty much every religion will tell you that you shouldn't kill or commit murder, but if you eat meat - guess what? you're a murderer.
I'm not gonna believe that you have good business sense, or make wise, well-thought out decisions if you're religious. It doesn't make any kind of sense.
You believe in something that does not exist and that there is no evidence for. You may as well believe in fairies and dragons. To me, you're a lunatic. You haven't moved forward as a human since the fucking Dark Ages. You put trust in something you have no control over. When something good happens, you attribute to it your faith. When something bad happens, you console yourself by attributing it to your faith like it has some deep fucking meaning by something better than you and you don't have the capability to understand it. Sorry, that's bogus and your demeaning yourself.
I control my life. I control my actions. I control my destiny. Something good happens, I've worked to make it happen. Something bad happens, it's a shame, and if possible I do everything within in my power to ensure it doesn't happen again.
I believe in karma, but karma is not a spiritual thing, it's logic. You shit on people and eventually someone will shit on you. You live your life on compassionate grounds and people will show compassion and empathy to you.
Also, if you eat meat, and you also claim to be religious, you are a hypocrite and a moron, since pretty much every religion will tell you that you shouldn't kill or commit murder, but if you eat meat - guess what? you're a murderer.
if you dont like that this guy raps about religion then dont listen to his music. no one is forcing you.
Its just the same tedious fucking shite on this forum week in week out. Im getting so sick of posting here.
lets see, this week we will have another religion thread. Next week it will be a discussion on meat and vegetarianism for the 100th time. The week after it will be milk.
Its just the same tedious fucking shite on this forum week in week out. Im getting so sick of posting here.
lets see, this week we will have another religion thread. Next week it will be a discussion on meat and vegetarianism for the 100th time. The week after it will be milk.
our forum is special (in it's own way).
Nobody discusses hip-hop here anymore and when someone does there are too many extreme opinions on a few topics.
You should be happy that there are many things that unite us <3
Nobody discusses hip-hop here anymore and when someone does there are too many extreme opinions on a few topics.
You should be happy that there are many things that unite us <3
Probably b/c you have nothing to back your arguement up with. I can talk about this shit all day because I find it interesting and people never cease to amaze me.
if you don't like the topics we discuss on this forum then don't post here. no one is forcing you.
or maybe im sick of arguing the same thing over and over again.
i dont have a problem with it being debated but it has come to a point where these topics are being discussed every week and all it ever amounts to is Casey Rain bashing everyone that has a different view or belief to his own so in that sense it is very tedious and tiring. People that argue the other way are told that they are inferior or morons when they put forward a good argument that goes against his beliefs and opinions so whats the point?
I swear to god, they should just rename this forum vegetarianatheist/forum.com with maybe a little sub section for rap/hip hop music discussion.
lol. Yeah I just don't post in discussions like that as I don't feel the need to manifest my opinion on certain things anymore. Here it's just pointless.
I used to just say what I think on a few occasions but I'm not going to repeat myself. And no, I dislike discussing something whole day. At some point it just becomes boring, if it was not solved in the first thread it will not be in the future if there are no new facts - you just repeat yourself and ignore others while getting pissed that they don't listen over and over again.
It's a strange coincidence that there are so many atheists in here btw.
I used to just say what I think on a few occasions but I'm not going to repeat myself. And no, I dislike discussing something whole day. At some point it just becomes boring, if it was not solved in the first thread it will not be in the future if there are no new facts - you just repeat yourself and ignore others while getting pissed that they don't listen over and over again.
It's a strange coincidence that there are so many atheists in here btw.
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