RZA’s The Tao of Wu: Hip Hop Religion, Spiritual Sampling, and Race in a "Post-Racial" Age

You’d think that seven years after the release of Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks” that there would be little need to explain the link between hip hop music and religion. Yet in a recent NPR interview, I was asked once again what the often profane posture of hip hop has to do with the sacred aspirations of spirituality. So perhaps it is still necessary to pause at the outset and offer a few examples as a reminder to readers of rap music’s long tradition of religious ruminations. Read the rest here