'American Idolatry' - Jeremiah Bonds (album review)

Another review at SOHH. It's pretty much all I have time for these days, which renders this blog pretty useless (but then I only get about one visit a week), but at least I'm doing something.

Loved this 'Street Album' by Jeremiah Bonds:

"The well-executed concept and the excellent musical selection make this project hard to knock. The serious subject matter is made palatable, no, more than that, entertaining..."

Click here to read the full review and click here to download 'American Idolatry' for free!

In other news: due to the fact that I'm a serial blog starter I have created a new blog, possibly a sister blog to this one, called Clean Cuts. Clean Cuts is dedicated to finding positive Hip Hop music which contains no swearing, derogatory terms or reference to negative themes such as sex, violence and drug use. The URL is:

www.cleancutshiphop.blogspot.com

De La Soul - '3 Feet High and Rising', 'Stakes Is High' and 'De La Soul is Dead'

De La Soul's '3 Feet High and Rising' has a good selection of clean tracks and fun for you:

Change in Speak
D.A.I.S.Y. Age
Description
Plug Tunin
Potholes in my Lawn
Say No Go (obvious drug references here but is against drug use)
The Magic Number
This is a Recording for Living in a Fulltime Era (L.I.F.E)
Tread Water

**EDIT** De La Soul's 'Stakes Is High' album has no clean tracks - didn't think it was worth making a post about it just to say that!

**EDIT** De La Soul's 'De La Soul Is Dead' doesn't contain much cleaness either - it's really only 'Shwingalokate' which is entirely clean.

Jurassic 5 - 'Power In Numbers'

Continuing with Jurassic 5 and their album 'Power In Numbers'. Clean tracks are:

'Freedom'
'Break'
'What's Golden'
'Thin Line' (although this song is about adult relationships it isn't explicit at all, worst lyric is "The minute you let him in it and he hit that")
'Sum Of Us' (contains reference to drugs, sex etc but condemns glorifying these things)
'DDT' (kind of a battle rap so a little aggresion from Kool Keith).

All in all a good haul of clean and positive songs here. Really glad that 'What's Golden' is clean because I love that track!

Jurassic 5 - 'J5', 'Quality Control' and 'Feedback'

As a favourite Hip Hop group of mine, I decided to start off with Jurassic 5. I was surprised actually at how few of their songs were clean despite their mainly positive stance. So far I've checked through three of their albums: 'J5', 'Quality Control' and 'Feedback'. All I found was 'Action Satisfaction' from 'J5' and 'Work It Out' from 'Feedback'. Dissapointing really, especially when most tracks are only spoilt by one line.

Latest Reviews

More reviews from the one like myself. All written for Sphere of Hip Hop.com so click the links to read the whole review:

theBREAX - 'Never Arrive' "the group are very adept at avoiding creating derivative music – in simple terms, their output is creative and fresh."

116 Clique - 'Man Up' "Most of the bible’s story has something to say on manliness and its David’s advice to Solomon in 1 Kings 2 that sums up the group’s admirable purpose: “So be strong, act like a man, and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and regulations, as written in the Law of Moses.”"

Tha G.I.M. - 'Supreme' "Supreme acts as a reminder of the basics of our faith – almost like a Hip Hop catechism."

'Doomsday Insuranc3' - Theory Hazit

Well, I finally did it: I finished reading 'The Attributes of God' today. I know it's pitiful that it's taken me so long and my only excuse is that I keep starting other books. Anyway, in my sprint to the end of the book, I read so much which provoked many thoughts and indeed, furthered my understanding of God's character. One part really caught my attention as it was something I'd been made to consider when listening to Theory Hazit's new LP 'Thr3e'.

Theory Hazit's track 'Doomsday Insuranc3' begins with a reading from chapters 8 and 9 of The Book of Revelation and focuses on final judgement, God's wrath and the need for man to change before this occasion.

In his review at SphereofHipHop.com Ahnon Knomis reminds us that ten years ago artists like Secta7, Shadow of the Locust and Remnant Militia were speaking on these subjects. In my experience, these are subjects seldom spoken on in Christian Hip Hop. A.W. Pink in the penultimate chapter of 'The Attributes of God', 'The Wrath of God' has this to say:

"A Word to Preachers. Brethren, do we in our oral ministry, preach on this solemn subject as much as we ought? The Old Testament prophets frequently told their hearers that their wicked lives provoked the Holy One of Israel, and that they were treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath. And conditions in the world are no better now than they were then! Nothing is so calculated to arouse the careless and cause carnal professors to search their hearts, as to enlarge upon the fact that "God is angry with the wicked every day" (Ps. 7:11). The forerunner of Christ warned his hearers to "flee from the wrath to come" (Matt. 3:7). The Saviour bade His auditors "But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him (A)who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!" (Luke 12:5). The apostle Paul said, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men" (2 Cor. 5:11). Faithfulness demands that we speak as plainly about Hell as about Heaven."

In short; it is of utmost importance that the issue of God's wrath is discussed - people need to hear it, whether we, or they, like it or not!

Here's Theory's track:

Go to Humblebeast.com to get the full, free download of 'Thr3e'.

2011's Best CHH Releases

One year comes to an end, another starts. There's just no let up; it's always one year or another. Last year saw my return to listening to Christian Hip Hop after relinquishing my duties writing for my own secular Hip Hop site.

In terms of music it's been a year I've enjoyed greatly. For the couple of years previous I'd been listening to way too much music, some good, some bad (for different reasons) because I committed to providing a very comprehensive coverage of the UK Hip Hop scene. This meant I no longer listened to music for pleasure. This year, picking up albums at my own pace, and listening to them for my own enjoyment has been great. Having said this, some of the albums I've listened to and enjoyed this year are ones I've had the priviledge of reviewing for SphereOfHipHop.com - an opportunity I've been very thankful for.

Now, in no particular order, and in no way definitive (because I've not listened to everything that's been released this year!), a list of my favourite Christian Hip Hop albums:

shai linne's 'The Attributes of God', was one which I was looking forward to. I love everything he'd done previously and he's been my most-played artist of 2011. The production on 'TAOG' didn't really do it for me but the lyrical and theological content is just so powerful that this is an album I'll be listening to for a lot longer. It also inspired me to finally read A.W. Pink's book of the same name, which is most excellent, although I do need to get on finish it now - it's only a short book! Get the download for $10 at the Lampmode site.

Braille's 'Native Lungs' was probably my most favourite CD this year. The beats are heavy, the rhymes are open and honest and Braille brings the gospel message clearer than most have ever done. This was a free download but I bought a CD because I loved it so much.

JGivens' 'Run' just popped up from nowhere for me. I'd never heard of him, or his music before but it blew my socks off. Creative and humourous whilst delivering messages of utmost importance JGiven's became my favourite new rapper. Fact. 'Run' is also now a free download on the JGivens Bandcamp page.

Earlier on in the year, right at the point of my return to CHH, two albums were released by Illect Recordings. The first one was muzeONE's 'Cold War', an album which reminded me of how credible the CHH scene can be - it's full of hard beats and clever, insightful, well-written rhymes. Solid stuff. You can get it for the ridiculous sum of $5 at the Illect bandcamp site.

The other Illect release was Sintax the Terrific's 'Prince With A Thousand Enemies' which was another release that got me inspired to read a book: Richard Adams' 'Watership Down' (another one that I've not finished because I had to take it back to the library - really want to finish it though!). The album takes concepts from the book and applies them to the life of a human, particularly to the life of a Christian. It's one of the most poetic releases I've heard this year and despite being based on a (so-called) children's book, it's also one of the deepest and most thought-provoking. This one can also be had for $5.

Another free download, and again from the Humble Beast stable: Theory Hazit's 'The Rock Is Steady' E.P./mixtape. It's a quick blast (15 minutes - perfect!) of bonafide Hip Hop music with a heavy nod to its predecessors. It gets no realer. Click here to get it!

Mr. J. Medeiros was an artist I'd known of for ages, primarily for his 'of gods and girls' album on Rawkus a few years back. In 2011 he dropped the genre-defying (although it's still Hip Hop to me) 'Saudade'. I loved the name, because I loved the word previously and I loved the album - tons of musically-excellent Rap music with lyrics to really get you thinking. This one's also $5 on Bandcamp - mental.

Paradox and DJ Sean P's 'Mending' was a release I reviewed for SOHH.com - another solid Hip Hop album full of some of the best beats and the best rhymes of the year. It's got a great list of guest appearances too - your favourites are bound to be there. Get this for $7.77, well why not?

Sneaking in at the last minute are theBREAX with their album 'Never Arrive'. It comes in on the back of a slew of excellent mixtapes and a building buzz that left me with no choice but to check this release out. I'll be reviewing it very soon for SOHH.com so look out for my thoughts on that one - suffice to say it'll be positive. This can be gotten here for an amount of dollars (which I can't see because I'm in the UK).

That's only a top 9, but it's only alliteration that dictates there should be 10. If you've not heard any of these, it's only going to set you back around 40 dollars to pick up all these quality projects - not bad eh? Here's to a new year and more fresh, God-glorifying, Kingdom-furthering, Christ-praising Hip Hop music.