Religious influence in popular music, from Bob Dylan to Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen, usually draws from the depth that artists engage from a position of suffering. Rarely is God cited as the source for a melody's joy. While West and Lamar's music focuses heavily on sin and redemption, Chance the Rapper fills out hip-hop's bend toward religion with an injection of rejoicing.
The song “Blessings (Reprise)” looks hopefully toward a Christian utopia, like the land of milk and honey that the burning bush promised Moses (“I speak of promised lands/ Soil as soft as momma's hands/ Running water, standing still/ Endless fields of daffodils and chamomile”), and celebrates his relationship with God (“I speak to God in public, I speak to God in public/ He keep my rhymes in couplets/ He think the new s--- jam, I think we mutual fans”). Chance embodies the First Letter of Peter's instruction to “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.”
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