You have to look at the fact that Hip Hop is under attack. It's not just Hip Hop but Black people, Latino people and all people are under attack for different things.
George W. Bush and Tony Blair had to convince the world that Saddam Hussein represented an imminent threat. Tony Blair lied when he claimed that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes.
I haven't seen much socially redeeming about religion. I'm an atheist. I don't here want to get into the Hitchens- or Dawkins-style attack on religion. I was raised on that. It's boring.
I never took that stuff personally when people said I was too young, too inexperienced. I get politics. I get attack ads. But they said 'mobbed up family.' That we were criminals. That kills me.
When you attack a problem as though it were solvable, even though you don't know how to solve it, you will be shocked with what you come up with. It's 100 times more worth it. It's never 100 times harder.
For me, having characters who are part of a faith then allows me to talk about how that faith either works or fails them without having to attack the institution.
I was distressed that after 9/11, when the United States was attacked by terrorists, the United States' response was to attack Afghanistan, where some of the terrorists had been.