You really should be paying attention to hip hop

If you’re not paying attention to hip hop right now you’re missing kind of an important cultural moment. The Tyler, The Creator album, Flower Boy, that just debuted at #2, barely behind Lana Del Ray’s new album? It’s basically a coming out album, where he stopped with the fictional narratives and vulgar alter egos of his earlier albums and put the real, vulnerable side of himself out there. People have picked apart specific lines and verses from the album ad nauseam, but it suffices to say that one of the big, overarching themes of Flower Boy is the loneliness and isolation of the closet, and it’s got the best début of any hip hop album that dropped last week.

Christian artist Steve Taylor called out Bill Gothard…30 years ago

The music hasn’t worn well with time (so very ‘80s), and this isn’t one of Taylor’s better songs, but it’s all there. The chain of command, the seminar notebooks, the umbrella of authority, all of it. So next time people try to play dumb about how Bill Gothard was just some fringe figure that nobody in […]

You know what we need? A Christian version of “Thrift Shop”– said no one ever

No, just no. I mean, there’s even an unironic side-hug reference. Back in the olden days, the church was a driving factor in creating music and art. Today, we’re unironically ripping off hipster rap–and no, this isn’t a parody because it’s not any sort of commentary on the original. It’s time to do better and […]