Top 10 Philosophical Hip Hop Songs

When I reflect on what got me interested in philosophy, three sources usually come to mind.

The first is Calvin and Hobbes - which, throughout its 10-year run, was brimming with meditations on aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, and the meaning of life. Even the title is a nod to two great philosophers, John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. (For a more theological take on the comic duo, check out Richard Beck's fantastic article "The Theology of Calvin and Hobbes.")

The second is the cover of the book The Drama of Atheist Humanism by Henri De Lubac. As a teenager, I was captivated by the fierce, fearless glares of Marx, Nietzsche, and Feuerbach, and knew that whatever they were up to, it was something unconventional and adventurous. I wanted in.

The third source may be less typical: and it's hip hop music.

Hip hop has been, without a doubt, the soundtrack of my generation, especially having lived through the "golden era" of the 1990s, when groups like De La Soul, Beastie Boys (RIP Adam Yauch), and A Tribe Called Quest reigned supreme.

Anyone my age invariably grew up inundated with rhymes galore, some of which - sadly still the case today - were much more compelling and meaningful than others. At its core, hip hop was about community and celebration, and at various times has been seen as a vehicle for protest, for poetry, or for expressing pain.

But to my mind, the creative use of language and concepts in hip hop resulted just as frequently in rappers dabbling into philosophy, particularly metaphysics. From references to Sartre and Camus in Digable Planets, to De La Soul sampling and repeating the phrase "what does it all mean?", good hip hop has always been a means of asking questions for me. (Apparently, I'm not the only one - one blogger writes, "when I hear hip hop, I think of Heidegger.") Time and time again, I heard rappers touch on perennial questions about God and the ground of being; cosmology (the origin of the universe) and space and time; human nature and the relationship of the mental and physical; and the good life.

In the academic world, though, philosophy has come under attack in recent years. In a world increasingly devoted to the physical sciences, philosophical arguments, except insofar as they serve to strengthen those sciences, strike many materialists or analytic philosophers as "meaningless," "unprovable," or "ethereal." Some, such as physicist Stephen Hawking, have gone even further, declaring philosophy "dead." However, as William Lane Craig and others have noted, "after pronouncing the death of philosophy, Hawking...plunges immediately into a philosophical discussion of scientific realism vs. antirealism." Try as we might, we can't avoid doing philosophy, even when we spurn philosophy or declare that science is the only way of knowing truth (science, of course, can't prove this statement - rendering it incoherent).

But the impulse toward philosophy, the "love of wisdom," is a human one, and will never die so long as there are human beings around to think and speak. Philosophy is everywhere - including music, including hip hop.

So without further ado, here are my picks for the top ten philosophical hip hop songs - songs which played no small role in my beginning to formulate and pose the fundamental questions that philosophy enjoins us to ask daily. I thank these artists for helping me realize at a young age that a real man uses books, not weapons, and seeks wisdom, not ignorance. (Aspiring rappers, note well.)

10.  Gang Starr - "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow"

I could have put any number of Gang Starr's songs on this list. DJ Premier's quintessential New York-style production and Guru's (RIP) monotone voice proved a winning combination for one of hip hop's most respected duos, who rapped constantly about the evanescence and falsehood of wealth, pleasure, power, and honor, and sought instead the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Notable lyric:
Here and gone in a flash, some made cash
While other suckers go broke real fast...
But some find happiness while others find sorrow
And what's here today, may be gone tomorrow

9. A Tribe Called Quest Feat. Common - "The Remedy"

Again, lots of Tribe and Common songs could wiggle their way onto this list for different reasons - but this little-known 1996 collaboration from the Get on the Bus soundtrack shows The Native Tongues members in a uniquely philosophical mood, touching on everything from the teleological argument and theodicy to man's nature as a mind-body composite.

Notable lyric:
Let's concentrate on our spiritual plate
Recognize your existence in this vast blue space
From a tiny cloud of blood
To the human beings with taste, sight, touch, smell
And sound; let's deem it profound!

8.  DJ Shadow - "What Does Your Soul Look Like Pt. 1"

Speaking of meditations on the mind-body problem in '96, this DJ Shadow instrumental off of his classic debut album Entroducing...provides little to no lyrics; but it does have over 7 minutes of saxophone samples, scratches, and drum breaks chopped up in the MPC, creating a quiet space to think about one of the most vexing questions there is: what is the soul?

(We've also written about two other notable producers that touch on philosophical notions: Nujabes and J Dilla.)

7.  Mos Def - "Fear Not of Man"

The first track from this Brooklyn-born actor and rapper's debut album Black on Both Sides is packed with references to God, mortality, the soul, and "this place called Earth."

Notable lyric:
All over the world hearts pound with the rhythm
Fear not of men because men must die
Mind over matter and soul before flesh
Angels for the pain keep a record in time

6.  Matisyahu - "Exaltation"

We've written about the deeper concepts underlying Matisyahu's music once or twice. How could we not? This Jewish-reggae superstar has inevitably waded into some of the oldest philosophical questions about the existence and nature of God, His creation of the universe, and man's relationship to Him - something which obviously for Matisyahu is a dynamic, deepening process, not a static, over-and-done-with act of faith.

Notable lyric:
Since way back when before time began
Existing eternally, everlasting...
Sowing righteousness and creating healing
Spoke, and it came into being


5.  Rakim - "Mystery (Who Is God)"

As with the previous song, legendary MC Rakim (who any self-respecting MC will always list in their top 5 favorites) dabbles here into questions of cosmology and theology. Lest you think these have become irrelevant questions, check out prominent NYU philosopher Thomas Nagel's latest book Mind and Cosmos, which marvels with Rakim at the universe's teleological striving "from unconsciousness, to consciousness," and calls for a timely reevaluation of the leading world-picture of neo-Darwinian materialism.

Notable lyric:
From unconsciousness, to consciousness
By knowledging his wisdom his response is this
A understanding, which is the best part
He picked the third planet where new forms of life would start...
And the plan is, to lay in the clays to form land
And expand, using the same clays to born man

4. Nas - "The World Is Yours"

This classic falls on the list not so much for the verses (which are smooth and well-crafted, as Nas' rhymes always are), but for that classic Pete Rock chorus. "Whose world is this?" That central question has an interesting way of striking the mind at the most unexpected times. You might be doing the dishes, driving to work, or eating a burrito, and suddenly see the oddness of these things - and the strangeness of there being a world at all, instead of nothing, hits. "Whose world is this?" Great question; but their answer - "it's yours" - is a tragically narrow and even solipsistic one.

Notable lyric:
Whose world is this?
The world is yours
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine
Whose world is this?
It's yours

3.  Ugly Duckling - "End of Time"

This little-known trio out of California holds fast (thank God) to the style of the "golden era" - their songs are all about jazz loops, word play, and positive vibes. On this song, they dig in a little deeper, and ponder the origins and ends of our universe, contrasting materialistic and dualistic concepts of man and mortality.

Notable lyric:
Some people say that we came from an explosion
That the door is closing, we're only decomposing
Rotting like the body of a barrel in a lost tomb
Is that the end? Or is flesh and blood a costume?

2.  Boogie Down Productions - "My Philosophy"

I would be remiss if I didn't include this BDP classic. Although it doesn't dig as deeply into metaphysics or epistemology as some of these other songs, and is mostly about dissing sucker MCs with whack rhymes (a noble goal, no doubt), the title and chorus might get a listener thinking about an even more basic, practical question, one that's especially relevant today given the analytic-continental rift in professional philosophy: what is philosophy?

Notable lyric:

Let us begin, what, where, why, or when 

Will all be explained like instructions to a game
See I'm not insane, in fact, I'm kind of rational


1. Eyedea - "Powdered Water Too Pt. 1"

We wrote about Eyedea's existential rhymes shortly after his death - and reading that article will give you a fuller appreciation of just how philosophical he was, and why he tops this list. But this song is a stand-out: from the opening line referencing Plato's allegory of the cave, through his brief and rapid questions on the brain and mind, thought, perception, and reality, onto his conclusion of radical skepticism ("No one really knows exactly what happens when we think, therefore we can never really ever know anything"), Eyedea's music is the gold standard of philosophical hip hop.

Notable lyric:
If someone grew up in a cubicle as Plato once suggested
They would only know the cubicle and not the world outside it...
And the brain equals a cubicle we'll never think outside it
Now inside wanna try to tie a diagram to modify them