Mother Marianne Cope might be the only saint to have a rap song written in her honor, thanks to two junior varsity football players at Saint Francis School.
Like other ninth-graders at the Catholic school, Stephen "Mo" Scott and Hunter Hoohuli were assigned to create a skit about Cope’s journey to sainthood, which culminates Sunday with her canonization in Rome. But the rap enthusiasts, who have knocked out several rap songs together for fun, asked whether they could create a hip-hop number about Cope instead, Scott said this week.
"I really, really love to rap. It just comes off the top of my head," said Scott, who named current stars Tyga and Drake as his rap idols. "I can just rap about anything. Me and Hunter, we just feel it. Hunter makes the beat with a pencil and his mouth."
Saint Francis has been dedicated to Cope’s memory since the school was rebuilt in Manoa in 1931. All grade levels were assigned different activities to make sure they learned about Cope’s dedication to caring for neglected victims of leprosy since coming with six other Franciscan nuns to Hawaii in 1883.
Scott, who wrote the lyrics, said the challenge was to describe the events in sequence and to have the song make sense. "The main point of the song is that (Cope) sacrificed her time to help people who were sick," he said. Here are the lyrics:
Sister works hard
Works as a team
They came on a boat — a boat full of steam
They got introduced to the king and the queen
They came to help sick girls and sick men
And the king sent people to go get them
They wore the white and black-looking jackets
Riding past the Iolani Palace
Hawaii is hot, hot like a sweater
Mother Marianne makes people feel better
Their performance can be seen on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch? v=0f4SNA9z5uk.
Scott is a lineman on the junior varsity team and previously attended Kapolei Middle School. Hoohuli is a middle linebacker from Ewa Makai Middle School. This is their first year at the former all-girls school. Next year they plan to be members of Saint Francis’ first varsity football team in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, said media spokesman Pat Bigold.
