What would Issac Watts’ music sound like if he was alive today and lived in North Philadelphia? I think it would sound a lot like what we hear on Shai Linne’s latest album, The Atonement. Shai is a hip-hop artist who writes lyrics that are weighty, cross-centered, theologically rich and edifying.
Personally I have never been able to get into ‘Christian’ rap. The lyrics are often trivial, soft, and lacking the weight that both the message of the gospel and the medium of hip-hop demand. So when I heard Shai Linne’s album I was not anticipating much, however, I was both impressed and refreshed by what I heard.
As the title indicates The Atonement is about the cross. In an interview I heard Shai say that the motivation for the album came from his reading of the classic The Cross of Christ by John Stott along with sermons he was hearing from CJ Maheney. He then wrote the lyrics and got the album together.
If you are familiar with hip-hop the sound is a traditional tough east coast sound, it is gritty and rough-neck; which goes well with the theme. There are brief interviews or interludes between songs where more is said about the subject at hand (the cross, sin, the resurrection, etc). In addition, there are samples in the songs by Maheney as well as John Piper. These samples come from sermons that these men have preached and really serve to punctuate Shai’s message in the respective songs.
Theologically Shai is a Calvinist who packs more theology into a 3 minute song than many evangelical preachers do into a 45 minute sermon. I have included a link over to his myspace page where you can listen to several of his songs for free. Listen to “Were you there?” first.
The Atonement is available for download at both at Amazon and iTunes. I just noticed this week that Amazon’s mp3’s are cheaper than iTunes, so check ’em out.
If you are interested I thought this video was pretty cool. Shai is about to do a concert and comes out and rhymes acapella; not sure if this is freestyle (off the top of his head) or something he has already done. At any rate, it is good stuff. He starts off a bit slow, but he ends well. Very encouraging.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpS-0lsasRw]