Hip hop’s pantheon rumbles

J. Cole's changing role in the battle for pre-eminence with Drake and Lamar.

Nyasha Chiketsani

Nyasha graduated from Cardiff University where he studied media, journalism and culture. He makes both hip hop and spoken word content.

Cole, Lamar and Drake.

Spirituality and religion are inseparable from American hip hop culture. Recent studies have shown that African Americans, the pioneers of hip hop culture, are more likely to be religious than any other ethnic group in America. As such, hip hop lyrics are often littered with allusions to both organised religion and more abstract spirituality. Consider Kanye West’s infamous 2004 record Jesus Walks, a song in which the Chicago native overtly professes faith in Jesus of Nazareth and pleads for his protection as he traverses through the adverse socio-economic terrain that is Black America.

Or take two of hip hop's most successful and influential artists today, friends turned enemies: J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. As recently as his second last project, The Off Season, Cole reveals an ongoing journey he finds himself on, stating:

I dibble-dabble in a few religions

My homie constantly telling me ’bout Quran, puttin’ me on

I read a few pages and recognize the wisdom in it

But I ain’t got the discipline for stickin’ with it

Cole’s belief in some form of a deity is well-documented throughout his music. Religion, though often critiqued, serves as a continual trope in his discography. Consider his pseudo-messianic perspective on the track Want You To Fly, where he claims that:

God is real and he usin’ me for a bigger purpose…

Sometimes I think that these verses can help a person

Way more than the ones they readin’ in churches on days of worship

No disrespect to the Lord and Savior, that ain’t just ego

I just observe that them words no longer relate to people

‘Cause modern times be flooded with dollar signs

And social media stuntin’, my n****s just wanna shine

They frame of mind so far removed from the days and times

Of Nazareth

His counterpart, Lamar, is not far behind in terms of religious motifs and themes. His spiritual journey, like Cole’s, is complex and multi-layered. Early in his career, one could assume that Lamar was an all-out Christian due to lyrics on songs such as His Pain, within which the Compton artist questions why God keeps on blessing him amid his mistakes and transgressions. Furthermore, his debut album good kid, m.A.A.d city was flooded with religious overtones, the culmination being the 12-minute track Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst where Kendrick and his affiliates confess their need for a Saviour, namely Jesus of Nazareth. However, as alluded to earlier, Kendrick’s spiritual journey is not as straightforward as that song would make it seem.

Though Christian virtues such as humility, altruism and charity still run through songs such as How Much A Dollar Cost, Kendrick has often been drawn to other religions, including Black Hebrew Israelism. Kendrick’s current position is uncertain, he seems to have landed on a form of religious syncretism. In his most recent album, Mr Morale and The Big Steppers, he confesses to still being a Christian “but just not today” and openly confesses to “praying to the trees”.

Both artists, surveying their immense influence across the hip hop community, both locally and globally, have developed something of a Saviour complex as they seek to promote peace and unity. Despite Cole and Lamar’s prominent themes of emotional healing and social consciousness, the two still possess a competitive edge. Cole, on the hit single First Person Shooter on Drake’s For All The Dogs album stated

Love when they argue the hardest MC

Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? We the big three like we started a league

This seemed to be a profound moment of acknowledgement and respect for the three rappers on contemporary hip hop’s pantheon (J Cole, Kendrick Lamar and Drake). However, the collaboration between J. Cole and Drake clearly didn’t sit well with the Compton Cowboy, Kendrick Lamar. This seemingly uncontroversial statement triggered a response Lamar, who declared:

“Motherf**k the ‘Big 3’, *n***a it’s just Big Me”

Lamar’s verse instantly became the talk of the town as Lamar had returned from his hiatus in order to take aim at his competition. And thus, Cole’s observation from his 2019 release Middle Child that “They act like two legends cannot coexist” has proved to be true.

However, Cole, perhaps unknowingly, has showcased the character of the Christian God in choosing to forego his offence and make peace with his brother.

So, what was Cole to do in this scenario?

For the Fayetteville Emcee, it seemed like a catch-22 of sorts; on the one hand, if he chose to retaliate that could cost him a friendship (with Lamar) that spanned over a decade. However, if Cole, choosing to maintain the peace, chose to turn the other cheek, his reputation as a preeminent emcee would be brought into question.

Cole, competitive as they come, refused to be outdone and replied to his friend-turned-foe, Kendrick Lamar, on a since deleted track called 7 Minute Drill. Cole scrutinised Lamar’s most recent album Mr Morale And The Big Steppers as well as his critically acclaimed 2015 release To Pimp A Butterfly. However, within a few days of the retaliation, J.Cole made a public apology to Lamar and his fans.

Cue the trolling, the confusion and the memes.

After years of working to cement his position as an elite hip hop artist, Cole’s status as a top emcee was now being questioned. The discourse surrounding Cole quickly turned sour, for the many hip hop fans who rejoiced over the return of parity and competition to the genre, this seemed to be a cop-out by Cole. However, Cole, perhaps unknowingly, has showcased the character of the Christian God in choosing to forego his offence and make peace with his brother.

But when he began to display forgiveness and humility? That became too much for the hip hop audience to stomach.

When Kendrick Lamar subsequently began to battle the third member of hip hop's Big Three, Drake, many fans applauded Cole for staying out of the conflict.

When Cole made his public apology to Lamar, his actions more resembled those of a Gandhi, Martin Luther King or, dare I say, Jesus, than a hip hop megastar. When the opportunity for lyrical bloodshed presented itself, Cole admittedly indulged, yet quickly retracted and repented. His actions strikingly resemble the teachings of Jesus, who advocated for radical reconciliation with one’s enemies.

It seems as though hip hop was content, and even supportive, of Cole’s afore-mentioned saviour complex... but only to a certain point. Giving to the poor? Fine. Spreading positivity and uplifting the oppressed? Fine. But when he began to display forgiveness and humility? That became too much for the hip hop audience to stomach.

In Jesus’ day, it was widely hoped that a Jewish messiah arrive in the form of a military warrior, who would destroy the oppressive Roman Empire. Therefore, when Jesus of Nazareth spoke of forgiveness, love for enemies and humility, this was difficult for his audience to accept. Instead, he taught and demonstrated a different path: one where the merciful will be shown mercy.

And so, perhaps there are similarities between Jesus’ story and the scenario Cole finds himself in.

Both audiences desired kings who sought bloodshed, vengeance and dominance. But, instead, both displayed love, peace and humility. It’s easy to choose the former but it’s pricey to choose the latter.

Some ponder the existence of God and His activity in the world today and with valid and noble reasons. However, what if God’s actions and character are sometimes mediated through unsuspecting people. What if God is condescending? Not in the sense that He belittles us or speaks patronisingly to us but rather gently descends to our level and communicates in ways that we can comprehend through people that we can relate to? What if God is more human than we sometimes think? Again, not in the sense that He’s susceptible to mistakes and error like us but more so in the sense that He knows what it’s like to experience pain and injustice, joy and relief and everything that comprises the human experience? Maybe through the medium of hip hop, a culture birthed out of poverty, vocational insecurity and social instability God has spoken to us? After all, it would be much like the God of the Christian Bible who chose not to enter the world as an infant in a royal family but rather choose the ghetto of Nazareth as His humble abode. Maybe, just maybe, this hip hop feud and Jermaine Cole’s withdrawal from it was a microphone through which God chose to speak and communicate His character to an onlooking world.

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Culture

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23 September 2025

5 min read

What would Pascal make of Emmy-winner Severance?

Locking ourselves away in a room still doesn’t work

Rick Hansen

Rick writes and speaks on leadership, transformation, and culture.

Pascal ponders a steampunk TV showing Severance.

Nick Jones/Copilot.

Severance, the hit Apple TV series, garnered the most Emmy nominations at the star-studded 77th Emmy Awards. Colors and fame popped on the vibrant red carpet as Hollywood’s elite strolled along the walkway, exuding famous smiles, elegant evening wear, and their signature flair.

It was strikingly ironic, however, to see the Severance actors in such formal attire, ripe with ready-made smiles. Their presence was, well, very Hollywood. This contrasted sharply with their on-screen characters, who are typically set against a dark, desolate backdrop of despair, compelled to force smiles as if it were an immense burden on their very souls.

The stark contrast between the opulent Hollywood red carpet and the sterile, bland workspace Severance is set in underscores a core theme in the show: the tension between faith and doubt, belief and despair, light and darkness.

In the show, the main character Mark S. grapples with the challenge of navigating his own tension in his own calibrated nightmare of hope and despair. He has to cope with the sudden loss of his wife, and it's suffocating him.

His company, Lumon, helps him deal with this loss through a surgical procedure called Severance. This procedure implants a chip in his brain that creates two separate identities: an "Innie" for work and an "Outie" for home. These two co-existing selves are emotionally, physically, and psychologically unaware of each other, essentially severing the person's whole self into two pieces. Whatever they are trying to bury or escape, becoming “severed” keeps the person’s “Innie” from dealing with this delicate paradox of the “Outie”. In short, they don’t have to choose the light or the dark.

For Mark S., severance offers a thin thread of disguised hope, a potential breach in his unbearable pain.

In his Pensées, French philosopher Blaise Pascal explores this intrinsic human tension between faith and doubt, belief and despair - a fundamental aspect of the human experience. He says, "In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t."

He posits that the evidence between the light and the shadow is just enough to sway us in one direction or the other. It’s calibrated on either side allowing us to lean into our personal autonomy. We are free to choose the hope of the light or succumb to the despair of the darkness; the outcome depends entirely on what we choose.

Leaning into Pascal, the act of severance relieves Mark S. of this beautiful yet complicated tension.

A review on Reddit said it simply, “Severing allows Mark to just literally shut his brain off, get the work done, then go home and distract himself with TV and alcohol... he doesn’t want to let it go.”

It’s real pain and he doesn’t know how to manage it. The shadows are pervasive. However, by choosing severance, Mark avoids the light and the shadows. The more he relies on severance for hope or healing by attempting to bury the shadows, the more the shadows intensify - the shadows Pascal says will blind us in our disbelief.

The battle that Mark S. faces embodies the very tension that Pascal is surfacing. This tension of choosing the light or the shadows is something we all must face.

We all carry shadows wrapped in our own circumstances. I think many of us would likely prefer to avoid confronting them. They are painful. They are dark. They are heavy. In truth, if we had the choice I think many of us would likely choose an escape instead of dealing with the darkness, with the secrets and the pain that hide in our souls.

For example, many of us show up to work or to life like Mark S. in some version of our “Innie” - a professional face of compliance, rule following, corporate persona, goal oriented, etc. and leave the version of our “Outie” at home alone and isolated to wrestle with our demons, with our painful, confusing questions. We curate our internal messiness and disguise ourselves with our own “Innie”.

For some, our day job is an actual version of a self-imposed severance.

I wish this tension between the light and shadows Pascal speaks of was less “tense” to say it plainly, and yet it is an inherent, essential part of the human experience.

This faith that both we and Mark S. wrestle with, by its very nature, lacks complete clarity; this tension is, in fact, a testament to this profound mystery of life itself. It's the wonder of life. There’s just enough data for us to lean into the light and also just as much for us to lean into the shadows. What we see depends on what we choose to believe in.

This tension is similarly addressed in the Biblical book of Hebrews. It highlights Pascal's subtle paradox and defines faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

The freedom to choose “the substance of things hoped for”, this inherent tension of Pascal, is the true marvel and mystery of life. It’s both messy and wonderful.

Our capacity for choice, to engage with the light and shadows and to lean into one over the other as we wish is a profound gift.

While some find this very tension a reason for disbelief, Pascal tugs on this and says it's actually fundamental to belief, it's a wonderful component of the human condition - a true gift. It hints at the very essence of hope. It’s the same process we must engage when choosing to believe in or not to believe in something beyond our selves, and ultimately beyond this world.

This struggle, the shadows of pain and suffering and the light of hope and belief is precisely what makes us alive; it’s what makes us human. It points us to the heavens where hope and faith were authored.

The question isn’t whether we have an “Innie” or an “Outie”, a tension of light and darkness, of faith and doubt. We all do. We all wrestle with this essence. The question is do we have the courage to wrestle with these internal conflicts, enabling us to bring our whole selves - our flaws and pains, our joys and hopes - into every interaction.

This tension Pascal speaks of is ultimately a mirror that shows us, us. We are all tempted to numb our pain, divide ourselves, to compartmentalize the shadows. But Pascal reminds us there is always enough light to see, if we choose it.

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