Proverbs 18:21 says: Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. I can vividly remember where I was and what I was doing on the night that rapper and actor Tupac Shukur died almost thirty years ago―I was living in New Orleans and trying to get my life on track at the time, and my brother and I were having drinks at a club called Whispers when we heard the news that Tupac died. It was an initial shock to us and the whole world because everyone thought he’d pull through, given the fact he’d been shot multiple times before and seemingly survived it without a scratch. I thought he’d recover and resume his acting career even though his rap career was essentially over because of one of his lungs being removed, but he’d ultimately succumb to his injuries from the drive by shooting in Las Vegas.

Tupac was the first famous rapper to die in this fashion, and unfortunately, he wouldn’t be the last in the years to come. He had spoken of death quite frequently in his lyrics, and the power of life and death lies in the tongue indeed. Christopher Wallace aka Biggie Smalls would also die in a drive by shooting in Los Angeles six months later while en route to the Soul Train Music Awards party. Many believe that Tupac and Biggie’s deaths were the direct result of the ongoing beef that they had, but ultimately it was the Most High who sanctioned their deaths pursuant to Amos 3:6. They both lived a lifestyle of debauchery and immorality, and once their cups of iniquity began to spill over, their years on Earth were drastically cut short. Or it could’ve been judgment from a past life, but that’s another lesson for another day.

The rappers of today still glorify adultery, drug dealing, drug use, pimping, robbery, and murder through so-called drill music; and the negative vibrations that they spew out of their mouths breed death. To sum it all up, black culture is death culture. There have been hundreds of rap-related deaths in the last ten years―most notably DMX, Pop Smoke, Nipsey Hussle, Coolio, Shock G from Digital Underground, and Biz Markie―but the bulk of them are underground rappers unknown to the mass majority of people. In fact, I can only name a handful of rappers that actually reached sixty years old―Chuck D, Curtis Blow, Ice-T, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster Flash―as rap has been around since the late 1970s. I think it’s safe to say that the LORD hates most rappers and is swift to judge many of them. All praise, honor, and glory go to Yahawah Bahasham Yahawashi.