Look out 2012 because here we come. As WestCoast Fiya is stepping into a new thing with our Hip Hop album reviews, we felt it was fitting that our January Hip Hop Review be of a ministry veteran, who is stepping into a new thing as well. However before we get into our review of Sevin’s album Purple Reign, we want to share a few things that we think will help set the expectations for all of our upcoming reviews.
We are new at this, hence, stepping into a new thing. We deeply desire to provide you, our readers, with honest and insightful reviews that will help you in your search for what you are looking for and to save you some of the hassle of filtering through what you aren’t. We’re believing that WestCoast Fiya Magazine will become your go to source for what’s new and what’s happening in Christian Hip Hop/Rap and your resource for finding new artist that will satisfy your musical palate. However, reviewing art is very difficult because its subjective and what I love, someone else may hate. So to give you a general idea of how we are approaching each project to begin with, the dichotomy for our music reviews will be between the ministry aspect and the musical or artistic aspect of a project or song.
Now each of these two areas are vast in and of themselves. The ministry aspect of a Hip Hop, Rap, Pop, or R&B project can go from the meaty type of theology that Lamp Mode Records loves to dish out, to the common sense, type of apologetics that God Over Money brings to the table. We love all forms of God glorifying approaches, even those artists who present such artistic projects, that you don’t realize that it’s Christian until someone begins to point out certain statements or themes.
The artistic side doesn’t really need much explanation. We’ve all eaten food that has tasted great as well as food that tickled our gag reflexes. Likewise, when it comes to music, we know what we like and what we don’t like. Although preferences may vary, we generally agree, when something is bad or when something pleases us, hence Mc Donald’s.
Along with serving you as our readers, we want to support the artists who are our brothers and sisters in Christ and who are using their God given talents to Glorify Jesus, serve believers and reach the lost but because we want to be trusted by our readers, we are going to be honest if we don’t like something. I know that many people have the idea that being nice is the 11th commandment, but sometimes Christians are so nice that you are outright lying. You know it’s happened where someone has gone to that Christian restaurant and eaten horrible food, just to turn around and claim that its delicious while recommending it to everyone else simply because its “Christian” food. That’s just downright wrong. When people continually do that to me, eventually, I stop trusting them and their recommendations. If that would be wrong to do with food, isn’t it also wrong to do that when it comes to music? I mean let’s face it, just because an artist preaches sound doctrine on a rap album, doesn’t automatically mean that the music is great. Am I lying? Okay, we’ll try to be as kind as possible. I’m a musician myself and I know how much time, effort and heart goes into making music. We’ll also try to have appropriate levels of expectation. A friend of mine recently shared with me that when he writes sports articles about High School football, his expectation and therefore verbiage are very different than when he writes about a pro game, so we’ll try to keep that in mind for our music reviews also.
We’ll be using a scale that will give you an overall idea of how each project struck us in the two aforementioned categories. The scale will be from one to five as follows:
5 FLAMES- INFERNO
4 FLAMES- SCORCHER
3 FLAMES- BLAZING HOT
2 FLAMES- FEVER PITCH
1 FLAME- SPARKS ON
I’ve given Purple Reign 5 Flames. For those of you who know Sevin, you probably know him to be one of the most talented, passionate and honest Christian artists to grasp the mic in the name of Jesus. If you are new to Christian Hip Hop and have yet to discover his work, what you’ll find is that Sevin has been making slapz out of Northern California for many years.
In every project that Sevin has released recently, he’s poured his heart into every song for the world to see, the good, the bad, the ugly and most importantly, Christ our redeemer. In early 2011, Sevin announced that he was in the process of hanging up his mic, in obedience to what God was leading him to do, so that he may fulfill what God was calling him to in this next season of his ministry. Although, it breaks my heart that Sevin will not be creating more art for Christ, we fully support his decision to serve Christ in other ways during this next season of his life.
Not only is Purple Reign one of the last editions to Sevin’s vast array of albums, I think it’s a masterpiece. I just can’t get enough of this album. For the very beginning this project will take you on a very candid journey through the ups and downs of Sevin’s walk with Christ. The rugged reality of redemption at work in the midst of messiness is vividly outlined and clear while appropriately pointing to our Redeemer.
The production perfectly compliments Sevin’s dynamic delivery and every verse is filled with the lyrical flow, word play, and rhythmic acrobatics that makes Sevin stand head and shoulders above the sea of mediocre music that has flooded our ears over the last few years.
It’s great when an artist makes a couple of great songs that make an album worth purchasing but when an artist makes a project that you can play on repeat, from beginning to end… it’s genius and that’s where I rank Purple Reign.
On a side note, I know that Sevin previously released a free album titled Finally Home Vol. 2 which, although definitely ministered deeply, didn’t seem to come together well holistically, in my opinion. For me, I just couldn’t get myself to like Finally Home Vol.2. and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why however, I’m thinking it’s either the production, the features or both. Don’t get me wrong, Sevin killed every bar on that joint as always, there were some dope songs and features on the album and I’m glad that Finally Home vol. 2 is free because the project does minister. If you felt the same way I did about Finally Home Vol. 2, don’t let that deter you from buying a few copies of Purple Reign. Purple Reign not only exceeded but greatly shattered my expectations.
Although Purple Reign doesn’t seem like it was geared to be an intellectual presentation of systematic theology, Sevin presents a hearty serving of solid Gospel Truth in the midst of gut-wrenching ruggedness, in a way that many of us can relate to. I think the production, lyrics, choruses, features and the content of every track bring that superb West Coast vibe while shining the spotlight on Jesus. The first verse of the first song titled Last Time Around starts like this, “I know what it’s like to lose confidence, you can’t go through life pursuing compliments. They gon’ hate you if they can’t duplicate you, but if they too fake to engage you, that’s dominance”. From those first four bars going all the way through the album, he just continues to draw deeper into the music.
Sevin’s transparency with his struggles and failures stand out the most. Somehow, this forced me to honestly review the current condition of my heart, without fear of being condemned. The interplay of honestly wrestling through his own struggles, while turning to and trusting in the continuing and finished work of Christ in his life, strangely seems to give us permission to do what is almost unthinkable for a good churchman … to remove our masks and stop pretending that we’ve got it all figured out and are under control.
I hope you pick up Purple Reign and receive permission to be honest about your failures so that they can truly be addressed by Jesus. I think sometimes we Christians portray a picture of Christianity that is so clean and perfect, that people either walk away from it, feeling like they can never reach the standard, or they just pretend that they have attained it, though inwardly they are harboring sin and wounds that will only fester and become infected behind the mask that they try so hard to uphold.
Purple Reign does have a lamentation vibe to it so I wouldn’t consider it a sunny day, top-down-on-the-way-to-the-picnic type of project. This would be my go-to project for those, “Jesus I need you to save me from myself” seasons that we all go through every now and then. I’d suggest buying two or three copies because you’ll likely want to share this one. Shout out to Sevin for this 5 Flame Inferno! Keep it Mob’n.
When it comes to the Gospel, we just can’t be silent,
Rating: 
-Noli Make Noise
