Artist: NF
Song: Green Lights
Album: Perception (2017)
Genre: Rap, Hip Hop
The hot thing in Christian Rap, NF is a rapper that actually sounds good. The fact that I have to specify this is depressing, but if you're familiar with my distaste for the tendency for Christians to accept sub-par media because that's just the precedent at this point, you probably get this.
He's on a roll releasing a lot of good music, so I hope you have fun checking out what he has to offer, or not. Rap isn't everybody's thing, so I get if you'd skip.
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Artist: NF
Album: Perception
Release Date: October 6th, 2017
Genre: Rap, Hip Hop
Rating: 8.5/10
So yeah, the new NF album! I don't follow NF nearly as close as I'd like to, so I actually had missed the release date for this album. Thanks to creeping on my friends though, I saw one of them listening to the new album on Spotify and managed to catch up then.
So I've probably listened through the whole album like 4 times by now just kinda having it on in the background and I really don't have a complaint with it. If I had to pick something I'd change, I would probably shuffle up his beats a little. Because most of his beats end up sounding really similar all his albums have a very consistent sound. Consistency isn't a bad thing by any means, but I don't love his beats in the same way I like some other people's, so I'd love a little bit of a changeup.
NF's music follows a trend that I love, depressed. I don't mean to imply it's good to be a depressed artist (gonna be talking about that in a few days actually), but I personally enjoy melancholy music as a general rule.
The album follows some pretty traditional themes for NF. There's a lot of anger and frustration at different things going on in his life which is a common theme in his music. When he switches over to the more mellow songs though I'm a huge fan of what he's got going on. The music behind them is really slick and I feel like he's managing to keep the same kind of emotion of his past albums.
Some of my personal favorite tracks are Intro III, Outcast, 10 Feet Down, Let You Down, Destiny, Remember This, and Outro. Especially Intro III, it's narrative is really hard hitting and makes you think about what he's feeling. Honestly that's what a lot of the album feels like. He talks about struggling through the last year and it's told in a way that I would hope make people a little more open to the struggles of being an emotionally compromised person in a spotlight. Maybe that's the wrong takeaway, but that's what I'm getting.
The other songs I just really love because they either go hard like Outcast and Destiny, or because they're just amazingly good like Let You Down.
I don't know why, but Let You Down is really rising up as my very favorite track of the album. I like a lot of the other ones more initially, but the feelings behind this one just hit me.
I'm gonna go ahead and rate this 8.5/10. Lyrically he's slick, but I would like a slight variation in some of his beats. That's about my only thing though, and when it comes down to it that's not a big complaint at all.
Listen to it all the way through, it's only an hour of your day. Spread that out a little and it's no time at all.
Artist: NF
Song: Oh Lord
Album: Therapy Session
Genre: Rap, Hip Hop
Soundcloud: NFRealMusic
Y'all mind of I hop on a gigantic religious soapbox? No? Sweet, thanks.
So I'm a employed by a church and a volunteer staff dude at a young adults group. As such you run into a lot of people that have opinions that are not always right. One of least favorite are the people that try and call out others for not having any "Christian care and support" from people that they've never supported themselves.
The worst though are the people that will always complain that their prayers are never answered, but all they do is get pray when they are in trouble. I'll admit, I've been like this before and will probably do it again, but what makes me furious are the people who have the gall to complain at times like this.
When ya healthy it's like, we don't really care for Him then
Leave me alone God, I'll call you when I need you again.
When I heard that I was really freaking convicted about it cause I know I've done that. Maybe not thought that directly, but it's not like that's not something that happens. I just hadn't heard it put quite so bluntly before and it hurt. Then it made me think though of all the people I know (once again, myself included) that only pray when they want things. That's not how prayer works, it's a conversation that shouldn't just be when there's problems.
How do you feel when that one friend who only calls you when they need money hits you up? I bet you get really pissed off. They don't have time to call you just to keep up, they only call you when they want something. God forbid you ask them for something, that's just you being greedy then.
Listen, yeah everybody wants change
Don't nobody wanna change though
Don't nobody wanna pray
Till they got something to pray for
It makes me so freaking angry when people act like this. You can't push you problems on everybody; take some freaking accountability for your own idiotic actions and actually try and fix things rather than just call out to the big man upstairs to solve all your problems. If I dream forever about being an athlete but never get off the couch it'll never happen, so why do you think if you pray when you're in trouble but never act out on it you'll actually get anything done?
I feel like people need to majorly reevaluate how they think of their beliefs in that department. The popular thing to say is "Relationship, not Religion." Well with that thought how about you actually act on it and talk with God more than "Hey, I want this, that, and the other thing."
I wish I actually could put what I'm thinking into words better, but I can't cause I'm not a good writer. I just put down what's in my head and try to maintain this sort of even neutral balance that doesn't go one way or another so when I do something like this it tends to come off sloppy and heavy handed. Like, what I'm mostly going for is probably not how this reads.
I apologize for this way off my usual content, but every time I listen to this song it makes me think of this and how I really need to work on it.
Ha, it's funny cause the original reason I liked this song is because it's beat reminded me of Oceans. Ah well. Sorry for the soapbox, enjoy the song.
Here's the song that made me really want to do this week.
A while ago I had a few people really try to get me to listen to NF for a while, and after people finally got me into I decided to listen to a couple albums. Here's the thing about listening to albums from artists you're unfamiliar with though, you don't always know what's coming.
Eminem? Violence, drugs, alcohol. It's a pretty typical lineup, I know what to expect from that guy, but I've also had a few more years to get used to the guy.
When I shuffled through Therapy Sessions I honestly hadn't expected such a heavy song as this since I didn't really know what direction he was gonna go. Then I get this song dropped on my head out of nowhere. It's a song about his mom and, as basically all music has taught us, nothing makes a more emotion driven song then a song about family. NF has some pretty intense things to say about his mom and her problems.
Honestly I don't think I would have to courage to actually go into a studio and say these things. Like, this is some stuff he clearly has issues with, as shown by his breakdown at the end of the song. It makes the whole song really hit home.
I don't tend to enjoy TobyMac at all. His music is dated and cliched, and he's a former member of DC Talk. Every now and then the dude puts out some decent music though, and this is one of them. I'm gonna be honest, you know NF is one of the primary saviors of this song. He's probably top 5 rappers for me right now, and his verse here isn't an exception. It's a little lighter than his usual material, so enjoy that part.
Then there's the little instrumental bit after the chorus, that's straight gold, I love it a lot.
And you know what, even TobyMac isn't too bad on this track. Kudos sir.
So this is the song that my brother can rap rather well. It's a really catchy song though, and it's kinda the thing that made me start to enjoy NF a bit.
I wasn't too into him for a bit because his beats are hella simple. Like, I've got guys like Stevie Stone and Kanye who have these crazy intricate beats that carry a lot of the song, but NF likes to carry the song by himself. Doing the work that most people have the beats do, ya know? I had a lot of issues with that at first cause a lot of the songs I listened to kinda had very similar sounds going on, but I'm a lot more ok with the stuff now then I had been, and that means I scored a cool new rapper to listen to, eh?
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