My Own Little World

Kings Kaleidoscope is literally (in Chris Traeger's voice) the best thing that ever happened to my taste in music. They partially restored my faith in Christian music's ability to be good (not an easy thing to do for me). Their only two full-length albums have gotten perfect scores from me, and one of them is even in my top 5 albums of all time. Some people would argue I have a massive bias towards them and their music. To a point, I agree: I am biased towards Kings Kaleidoscope's material. Here's the thing, though: it's actually that good.  More so than almost any other artist in Christian music, they blend musical ingenuity with superb songwriting and lyricism. Their debut flipped the switch on a new generation of worship music, while their sophomore effort progressed their sound into a relatively sparser palette while also shifting their aim from worship music to music for the Christian life. Continuing their near-perfect catalog is their latest release, Th...

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 ...

Some of you may not believe me, but I actually have a schedule for reviewing music. I look at upcoming releases and preorder what I can on iTunes so I can stay on track. However, this time I deviated from the norm. I had no intentions of reviewing Swoope's new album Sinema , but several sites had it rated so consistently high I just had to take a look. I can tell you right now that I am extremely glad I did so. What Swoope has done with Sinema  is create an incredibly appetizing concept album that only gets better with more listens. The central story deals with themes of temptation, consequences, and the struggle between our flesh and our Godly nature. I find this notable and quite risky, as most Christian rappers deal with rejecting the status quo of Christianity instead of more relevant topics such as this. It revolves around Swoope and his relationship with a fictional character, Mya Desirae. The story is kept running by phone calls between the various tracks...