The Rising influence of Religion on Popular music culture (2020)

     
   In times past, there was a great wall of partition between Religion ( Christianity in particular) and popular music culture, it seemed as though there was an unwritten law that prohibited the inclusion of anything that has to do with religion into pop music culture.   

 

   In recent times however, this has not particularly been the case. We have witnessed a bold infiltration of pop music culture by Religion, and this surprisingly is not a move spearheaded by religious leaders, but a result of gradual realization of Essence and purpose through experience, by our Favourite Pop stars.

 

     From the Baptism of JB in 2014, to the heavy influence of Christianity on the biggest album of 2016, "colouring book" by Chance the rapper, to Kendrick Lamar's 2017 Album " DAMN" where he talked about Faith, to Kanye's 2019 Album "Jesus is king",

Kanye west and chance the rapper back in 2016.

 As a matter of fact, Kanye's has always had this religious influence from his earliest days. It's much different now though as he has long declared his allegiance to Jesus Christ and has made a radical switch to Christian themed songs with no form of cussing whatsoever.

     Tori Kelly

NF

We have also seen the influence of religion in songs like John bellion's "Hand of God", "Maybe IDK" and " Human".  Artistes like Tori Kelly
and NF have successfuly gone Mainstream without necessarily going against their Christian beliefs, they never swear and have publicly acknowledged Jesus.

 The latter has 2 number one albums on Billboard chart, His 2017 album "perception" kicked out Chance the rapper's album "The big day" to grab the number 1 spot, this came as a shock to most people. The most recent of all is the release of a song titled "Holy" by Justin beiber featuring Chicago's one and only, "Chance the rapper".

 Holy is a song that reaffirms the Christian belief of Marriage as a Holy institution that represents the relationship between Jesus and the church, while providing a partner and helper for the times of trouble and times of peace. Impressively, this song has amassed an excess of 50 million views on YouTube in less than a month. Justin beiber has said the release of this song will usher in a new phase in his career, we just might see him follow the path kanye followed.

        We also must not overlook the great work put in, in this regard by Lecrae and his famous 116 clique. They have pushed so hard to break the boundary between Mainstream/ popular music culture and Christian Hip hop, truth be told, their efforts have not gone down the drain, people are actually starting to pay attention to what's going on in the Christian hip hop community. 

Lecrae    has featured mainstream artites like Ty dollars $ign, tori Kelly, Yk Osiris, Danileigh, and John Legend.

     It seems, as though this is but the beginning of a future trend that will greatly close the gap and resistance of religion by Pop culture.