My Own Little World

Lecrae is the undisputed pioneer of Christian rap. His albums have sold more units and garnered more acclaim than any other modern Christian rapper. His Church Clothes mixtapes are some of the best albums I've ever listened to. However, recently Lecrae has received some accusations of selling out to the mainstream, losing the punch in his lyrics and being a carbon-copy of mainstream rappers in his beats, even bringing some of them in for guest features. Does his new release  Anomaly  support these accusations? In a word, no. Lyrically, Anomaly  returns to some of the themes present in his most challenging work, Church Clothes . In particular, "Welcome to America" speaks to the approval we seek as Christians in United States. It's as humbling as "Church Clothes" in its exposure of the American church. "Nuthin" is pointing out that talking about the same-old, same-old is just as good as talking about nothing. It is a clever jab at the prosperity ...

Sometimes, I see a movie that is not like anything else I have ever seen. A list of these films for me would include Gravity , Inception , (believe it or not) Les Miserables , and Flight . I guess I'll be adding Boyhood  to that list as well. However, unlike the other films on this list, what makes Boyhood  unique is not its story, its characters, or its themes: it's the production.  As some of you may know, Boyhood was shot in less than fifty days over twelve years with the same cast and crew. Talk about a gamble. There was no telling what would happen if one of the principal actors just suddenly died or if the director's own daughter, playing Mason's sister, decided not to be in her dad's movie anymore. Thankfully, the entire cast and crew stayed together for all twelve years of production, making one of the most unique films of all time. Without this method of production, we wouldn't have the unique story, deep characters, or the rich themes present i...

I'm so elated to finally be writing this review. U2 is one of my favorite bands in the history of music. They are perhaps one of the most spiritual non-Christian bands in the industry and a very prolific live act as well. However, they've been very inactive with releasing new material since 2009's masterpiece (in this reviewer's opinion) No Line on the Horizon . It was last year that we heard "Ordinary Love," the first new material from the band in almost four and a half years. That song was for a film about the life of Nelson Mandela and won a Golden Globe. Their second single came as a promotion on the Super Bowl this year. "Invisible" was a free download on iTunes for two days during which Bank of America would donate $1 for every download. It was well-received as a promotional single; however, I really didn't want a whole album of that sound. It was a little too "radio-friendly," shall we say, for my tastes. And then today, ...