Spiritual rap is a sub-genre of hip-hop that focuses on assisting beings to heal their limited thoughts and beliefs. It seeks to teach beings new ways of seeing the world.
Spiritual rappers traditionally focus on bringing people together through awareness of the higher consciousness that connects us all. Inspired by earlier spiritual gurus like Jesus and Buddha, JClay is the first predominately spiritual hip-hop artist.
Spiritual Rap vs Christian Rap
Although Christian rap is based on spiritual beliefs as outlined by Jesus’ teaching in the bible, it’s limited to only that. Spiritual rap believes in removing all limits, whereas Christian rap enforcers the perceived limits that are outlined in the bible.
For example, the idea of sin, hell, death, and damnation are beliefs a lot of Christian rappers share. Alternatively, Spiritual rappers believe that these are illusions and that the only truth is God/Love/Oneness/All-There-Is/Life. These ideas contradict that of sin, hell, death, and damnation.
Photo by Lane Marie
History of Spiritual Rap
Hip-hop is known for giving the raw truth of the rap artists’ perceived realities. As such, elements of spirituality have existed throughout the entirety of hip-hop itself.
Many notable rappers have brushed upon the subject of spirituality including Rakim, DMX, Lecrae, and Big Sean. Yet these and other rappers are known for having unity be their main subject matter as evidenced in their repeated mantras of having haters/enemies.
Known Spiritual Rappers
As of now, there aren’t many predominately known spiritual rap artists. The list is small but is growing every day as artists become aware of their higher/inner selves.
Some spiritiual rappers to note are JClay, Bryan Divisions, CrewZ, Illuminati Congo, and Pleiiiades. Here are some of their songs.