If I upset you, don’t stress. Never forget
That God isn’t finished with me yet.
I feel His hand on my brain…
When I write rhymes, I go blind and let the Lord do His thang.

2Pac, “Ghetto Gospel,” Loyal to the Game, 2004. More 2Pac quotes…

Life is full of stress and it wrecks my brain,
So I puff the buddha bless and destroy the pain.

JuJu, “Props Over Here,” from The Beatnuts’ Street Level, 1994

I know the feelin, when you feelin like a villain,
You be havin good thoughts but the evils be revealin’.
And the stresses of life can take you off the right path,
Jealousy and envy tends to infiltrate your staff…
We gotta hold it down so we can move on past
All adversities, so we can get through fast.

Q-Tip, “Stressed Out,” from A Tribe Called Quest’s Beats, Rhymes & Life, 1996

I wanna just take this time out to be perfectly honest;
Cause there’s a lotta shit I keep bottled that hurts deep inside of my soul,
And just know that I grow colder the older I grow.
This boulder on my shoulder gets heavy and harder to hold,
And this load is like the weight of the world and I think my neck is breaking,
Should I just give up or try to live up to these expectations?

Eminem, “Hailie’s Song,” The Eminem Show, 2002

Before I lay my head down to rest,
I roll up a nickel sack of cess to relieve the stress.

Steele, “Wontime,” from Smif-N-Wessun’s Dah Shinin’, 1995