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Nu Thang Review
Since the release of the first album last year, Toby McKeehan and his DC Talk posse have been a publicity magnet for Christian and secular media to accept the legitimacy of sanctified rap. Expectations have heightened in accordance with the number of godly M.C.�s vying for hip-hop fans� culture-investing duckets. Is DC Talk up for challenge? For a majority of the album, the answer is yes. McKeehan has secured co-producer status alongside Mark Heimmerman, likely the lynchpin for allowing Toby and singers Michael Tait and Kevin Max forays through musical avenues heretofore uncharted by their brotherly kin-in-rhyme. For example, the first go-go based rhyme in Christendom comes in the prayer advocacy of "Take It to the Lord" with a grinding polyrhythm that would do Chuck Brown or Trouble Funk just fine, with poetry none-too-trite. However, the trio�s step into dancehall style reggae, I Luv Rap Music," though a swell defense of its art to this who would diss it, is a wee too fleshed out for a style so generally minimal and a tad misinformed (lest McKeehan counts �70s ranters like the Last Poets, rap didn�t start out very politically). Most of the album, though, is divided between swingbeat and metal crossover.Best among the former is the scintillating "He Works," and on a mellower tip, the title track (but why is "thang" pronounced "Thing"?) "Talk It Out" comes closer to the swarm of whitebread funksters like Dino, but the family communication sentiment is appreciated. The metal may be there for more chances at rock radio airplay. Though it might not reach the musical heights/depths of the Beastie Boys� or Tone Loc�s best/worst, "No More" and "Walls" will have some leather-wristed fists clenched high.
But, where "Gah Ta Be (Saved)" was DC T.�s first try at black gospel fusion, they kick the dopicity higher now in the concluding "Can I Get a Witness," a shoe-in for urban and trad gospel DJ�s to get hyped. More haunting than hallelujah-happy are the early �70s Temptations crush of "Things of This World" and the downtempo anti-abortion kick of "Children Can Live (Without It)," affecting the foreboding swirl of some early �80s underground disco.
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Review used by permission: CCM Magazine
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