How Vinyl Changed My View of Music Part 2: Faith n' Records

            Every album especially those from pre-nineties, were composed together to tell a greater story through shorter stories. The full story being the album, the short stories being songs. It was like I had only been reading the “Horse and His Boy” and never noticed it was a part of something greater the Narnian Chronicles. Short after this awakening I discovered real G-rap. A Genre that even today still lives in this principle, each part contributes to a greater whole. Which leads to records influence on my faith.

              This Ideal graduated to the world beyond music. I realized if I had been missing this step in music I must be missing it in other areas, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. Suddenly one night while listening to The Don Kiilluminati: The 7 Day Theory (which is a great example of small stories forming larger ones in rap) an album written by 2pac right before his murder about his eventual death, I thought what if I did what I just started doing with music, but apply it to the bible. So, I read the bible from cover to cover. Sure, enough I discovered something I realized was focused more than anything, but was forced out in my past church experiences, unconditioned, raw, love and forgiveness without expectation.       

              In addition to practice, I learned a lot about how rappers express faith. You may or may not have heard this, but 2Pac has been seen as a modern prophet. He brought his own faith back to the ghetto using their language, rap. Among the raps about ballin' and straight G's were songs about faith. For example, Ghetto Gospel, Until the End of Time, Hail Mary, Changes, Heaven Ain't Hard to Find, Wonder if Heaven Got A Ghetto, and Only God Can Judge Me, all influenced faith with enfaces on how to apply that to the ghetto, inspiring many ghetto youth to explore faith for the first time and that leaving the ghetto is possible many of the Disciples, David, Job, and even Jesus came from the ancient gutter.  This was foreign for me. The Idea of using a platform, usually considered to be of sin to preach a bit. Later on many others did simular things, for instance, Puff Daddy's testimony after Biggie Smalls died, B.o.B. in more recent years, and Kendrick Lamar have all expressed faith in rap. See they got nothing, but thats the thing God is free. 

"How many brothas' fell victim to the streetz, R

est in peace young nigga, there's a Heaven for a 'G'" 

- 2Pac/ "Life Goes On" chorus