music

My New Favorite Running Song

September 3, 2009, by Zack No comments yet

You’ve seen a couple of posts here about Lecrae.

Today I want to let you know about another very talented rap artist associated with Lecrae and the Reach Records label.

He calls himself ‘Tedashii’ (and he tweets!), and he just released a new album, called “Identity Crisis” (you can buy it here).

My favorite track from the album is called “Make War“.

How can you not love a hard-core rap track that starts out with a John Piper sermon snippet?

But the whole message of the song is awesome and, I think, very appropriate for the church in our age.

Check it out:

“The Bride”

July 22, 2009, by Zack 4 comments

You’ve seen Lecrae pop up on this blog a few times now (like here).

He’s been around for a while, but for years, I used to walk right past his albums at the christian bookstore. I can’t really explain why… I just looked at the album covers and assumed the music would be cheesy, like most almost all ‘christian’ rap.

But it’s not.

At all.

His newest album, Rebel, is the bast rap album in the history of the world I’ve ever owned.

Seriously.

I play it when I run. I play it when I drive. I play it while I work.

And I have been for like 6 months now.

One of the catchiest songs on the album is all about the Church, and called “The Bride“, (in reference to how the Bible says that the Church is the Bride of Christ).

The theology on this track is astounding, and the message is desperately needed in the Church at large today.

Taylor Swift + Coldplay – Words = “Viva La Love Story”?

June 16, 2009, by Zack 5 comments

I stumbled across this awesome video over at Joanna Muses.

Two very talented guys take a piano and cello and mix an instrumental combo of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida“.

If anyone figures out a cool way to track this to an mp3, please let me know!

Bono The Evangelist?

April 24, 2009, by Zack 3 comments

Yesterday I saw this post over at Zack’s blog (yes, another Zack).

It describes an article based on a section of the book Bono In Conversation, where Bono essentially witnesses to an interviewer.

I love this because it’s such a classic scenario, capturing the stereotypes and assumptions that so often blur our communication about the Gospel. This interviewer is working on the assumption that Christianity is for the feeble-minded, and that anyone who would accept the idea that God came into the world as a man and died for the sins of the human race must be a fool who hasn’t thought it out all the way.

And here’s Bono, the iconoclast of ‘cool’, explaining grace! And what’s more, he gently calls this dude onto the carpet and basically explains to him C.S. Lewis’ argument from Mere Christianity: you can’t be luke warm about Jesus. He is either The Messiah, or he was nuts and should be dismissed as a lunatic.

For all my friends who have wondered what it looks like to share the message of Jesus effectively and contextually, just have a look at this!

Check it out and then tell me what you think: