The Healer

In this song, Erykah Badu declares that Hip-Hop is bigger than religion and it's bigger than the government. She explained to Westword, that she means this both literally and figuratively. Badu explained: "I've traveled all over the world, and I'm a student of religion and philosophy and music and science and quantum physics and people and anthropology and geology. And in doing all that, collecting all of this information, I find that everyone prays differently, at different times and for different things. But everywhere I go all over the world, from Japan to Mexico to Africa to Argentina, people nod their head to the snare and the kick in the same kind of way, whether they know the language or not. They feel it and they zone out to it. They become part of the culture of hip-hop. Because rap is something you do, but hip-hop is something you live. Rap is only one part of the hip-hop culture. It's the graffiti, it's deejaying, it's two turntables and a microphone, it's the dance, it's the dress, it's the look of that tribe. And there are members of that tribe all over this planet. It's traveled so far and so wide, more than anything. That's what we have in common. And it is bigger than religion. We don't have the same religion. We don't have the same political beliefs. But that we have in common, and I've seen it with my own eyes, and so have others. It can't be denied."