Why Rappers Are Daring to Be Religious

He was seen as the second coming. Kendrick Lamar, the California rap supernova whose 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City earned comparisons to hip-hop’s masterworks, was under intense pressure to repeat its success. So when the world got the searing To Pimp A Butterfly last March, it was a surprise—in no small part because of how openly religious it was. There’s a long verse from a cajoling Satan; another song is written from the perspective of Jesus Christ; there’s an obsession with the seduction of sin. But for the MC who once boasted that he was “more Pappy Mason than Pastor Mason”—identifying more with the drug kingpin than the rapper-turned-reverend—the ambitious move paid off, nabbing him a field-leading 11 nominations at the 2016 Grammy Awards (to be broadcast Feb. 15 on City). “God allowed this album to be top-tier without a radio single,” he exulted last year.