Tupac Episode is live!
Latest episode of Theology of Hip-Hop
Tupac Shakur wasn’t just a hip-hop legend — he was a street theologian. In this episode, I explore Pac’s spiritual imagination: a Black Jesus who looks like the people society discards. For Pac, “Black Jesus” wasn’t about replacing Christ — it was about reclaiming Christ. It was a demand for a Savior who shares the skin color, struggle, danger, and social location of marginalized communities. In Pac’s theology, a Black Jesus stands with the oppressed, survives the streets, knows suffering firsthand, and refuses to turn away from those the world calls “thugs.” It is, at its core, liberation theology from the block — insisting that God must show up in the places where pain is deepest.
I trace this vision through songs like “So Many Tears,” “Keep Ya Head Up,” “Ghetto Gospel,” “Thugz Mansion,” and more, showing how Pac wrestled with God, lamented injustice, and clung to hope. Pac’s lyrics echo the Psalms, the prophets, and the longing for rest found in Revelation — all refracted through the realities of poverty, violence, and survival.
What emerges is a gospel forged on concrete: unpolished, conflicted, fiercely honest, and deeply human. Tupac’s theology speaks from the margins about a God who remembers forgotten people and a heaven big enough for those the world refuses to see.
Listen to the full episode here.
Also available on Apple Podcasts.
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