In a guest editorial he penned for Medium.com, Los Angeles, California rapper Ras Kass addressed his “How To Kill God” record and the events that inspired him to write the song. As part of his editorial, which is titled “Why I Wrote ‘How to Kill God’”, the rapper starts off by addressing the motivation behind the Apollo Brown-assisted song.
According to Ras Kass, the song started with “an epiphany.”
“Around 1999, I had an epiphany. After being just two albums into my major label record deal, I had encountered an endless amount of politics, treachery, envy and overall shadiness,” Ras Kass wrote. “I knew that by my last contractual album — the fifth — I wanted to go out with a bang, create my opus, and really tell people what I thought. I figured I’d be blackballed out of the industry for it, but by then I’d be financially solvent. Maybe not Russell Simmons rich, but wealthy enough to retire. In 2000, I called a fellow emcee and told him my fifth and final album’s title, How to Kill God. He was slightly offended at my use of rhetoric.”
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Later in his story, the West Coast wordsmith revealed that he initially planned on titling his album How To Kill God, but “pressure from digital/physical distributors and buyers” forced him in a different direction.
“Blasphemy became the LP’s title, but ‘How To Kill God’ is still the first song, so we really found the name change moronic,” he wrote. “Both titles play on the same metaphor; that they are the very opposite of what people would initially believe them to be. Blasphemy’s artwork denotes the American flag; ‘Land of the free, home of the brave,’ with Washington’s mouth duct taped because in reality this is the ‘land of the thieves,’ stolen from slaughtered natives, and was ‘home of the slaves.’ America is the country who refused to abolish the barbaric practice of slavery for another 30 years later than Europe; and even that took a civil war.”
Ras Kass then offered some insight into his decision to name the record “How To Kill God.” According to the rapper, the message of the song and the reason behind its title is:
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“No matter whose organized religion we join, when we claim our ‘God’ tells us that we should forcibly convert, steal property and in every above mentioned example demean, miseducate, murder, rape and torture other human beings, those are forms of killing God.”
To read Ras Kass’ “Why I Wrote ‘How to Kill God’” story in its entirety, visit Medium.com.
