GloRilla, RAIN DOWN ON ME | Music Lifts 🎶 🏋

In the 25th edition of Music Lifts (2025), we’re uplifted by GloRilla performing “RAIN DOWN ON ME” featuring gospel visionary Kirk Franklin, among others.

Welcome to Music Lifts 🎶 🏋, featuring songs that encourage, inspire, and uplift the spirit; songs that exude fortitude, positivity, and resolve, even in the face of adversity.  Featured songs aren’t genre-specific; songs may or may not be faith-based. The goal is for these songs to make you feel better – be LIFTED to new heights!  So, for the 25^th edition of Music Lifts 🎶 🏋 (2025), we highlight “RAIN DOWN ON ME” as performed by GloRilla.

“It’s 7 p.m. Friday / It’s 95º / I ain’t got no n***a, and no n***a ain’t got me.” Oops, wrong song!  Grammy-nominated, “Queen of Memphis”, GloRilla, raised eyebrows for a different reason than her profanity-laced, unapologetic rhymes: she won the Best Inspirational Award at the 2025 BET Awards. Shock and awe, ladies and gentlemen 😳 😮! The gospel purists had their panties in a wad a lot to say, creating some captivating conversation.  Deitrick Haddon was pissed pressed. Anna Douglas hilariously imitated her acceptance speech. Christian commentator GVStudios was appalled, calling it disgusting.  Personally, as a millennial who grew up on traditional gospel music, I was surprised myself.  Was I appalled or pressed like the others? No, because honestly, I don’t put that much stock into the BET Awards in the first place, nor have I followed the awards much in recent years.  Anyways, GloRilla did collaborate with gospel musicians on “RAIN DOWN ON ME”, the eighth track from her mostly 🤭 secular album, GLORIOUS.  “RAIN DOWN ON ME” features Kirk Franklin, Maverick City Music, Kierra Sheard, and Chandler Moore.  Unsurprisingly, there are many songwriters, while NVRMIND, Major Seven, Muzikman, and Kingbnjmn are among the producers.

So, is “RAIN DOWN ON ME” inspirational? Yes.  It is not traditional, but lyrically and thematically, it is uplifting.  GloRilla gives praise to God in the way she knows how, you might say.  That includes maintaining her distinct cadence and flow. “Feelin’ like I’m God’s favorite, and that’s the best feeling ever / Rain down on me, Father God, I won’t use an umbrella,” she raps in the first verse, adding, “Forgive the ones who play with me, apparently, they don’t know no better / At times, I don’t know who to trust, I randomly rebuke the devil.” Near the end of the verse, she adds, “You ain’t have to do it, but You did, that’s why I thank You, Lord.”  In the first chorus, the choir, with Franklin and Chandler Moore, gospelize, petitioning the Lord to “Let the blessings /… Rain down on me.” In the bridge, a humble GloRilla characterizes herself as a sinner, but seeks God’s mercy (“And if any blessing-blockers ‘round me, help me cut them / In Jesus name”).  Kierra Sheard takes the reins in the second verse.  Sheard, of course, is a contemporary gospel artist through and through.  No controversy here, right? “Mama ain’t call you Glo for no reason (Reason) / Go on and Glo it up, girl, it’s ya season.” Well…   There is a vamp, focused on the showering of blessings, a final chorus, and unsurprisingly, an outro by you-know-who, Kirk Franklin! “Oh, you don’t have to be perfect, no / You can come with your mistakes… / That don’t disqualify you from getting a blessing / Hallelujah.”  So, what are the last words that GloRilla leaves us with in the outro? An “On the gang,” mixed in the background, affirms Franklin’s sermon. “RAIN DOWN ON ME” is inspirational, but not a gospel or inspirational performance of old.  Still, it goes out of the rapper’s bold, secular comfort zone… There isn’t a swear word in sight! H8ers gonna h8, I suppose!