Yesterday, The Houston Press covered Bun B and his Religious Studies 331 class at Rice University. Below is an excerpt of Professor Trill explaining the connection between Hip Hop and religion. Amen brother.

“My parents wanted to make sure I had a spiritual background before I got out into this world,” says Bun. I was certain that I was capable of conveying hip-hop. I wasn’t sure of how the argument was going to relate to religion. But once Dr. Pinn gave me his definition of religion within the context of the course, it made more sense.

We’re not talking about hip-hop and religion being the same,” says Professor Trill. “We’re showing instances where hip-hop and religion have the same goals and ideology in common within the context of the culture. Of course, this doesn’t relate to everything that hip-hop is, because everything that hip-hop is isn’t necessarily religious.”