The Last Missionary - Review

Given that Stephen the Levite had two of the dopest, most compelling and convicting contributions to Lampmode's recent The Church compilation -- the tracks Membership and Church Discipline -- it's appropriate that his long-awaited sophomore LP is heavily centered on that same subject. In fact, the title of the album, The Last Missionary, is a reference to the church, and the doctrine of the Church is expounded on throughout the majority of the album.

Over a luscious and lustrous beat, the album opens with The First Missionary, which is a reference to the Triune God's missional character as expressed in Genesis in the act of creation itself, but especially in God's presence in the Garden, dwelling with the first humans and delivering the 'protoevangelium'. This track seems to have had a foreshadowing in DJ Official's fantastic posse cut Not My Own, which features a verse by Stephen that covers similar ground.[1] Stephen delivers some stunning rhymes packed with rich theological content and structural beauty, carefully crafting his syllables with alliterative affects.

There are two scriptural analogies which primarily define the doctrine of the Church: the Church as the Body of Christ and the Church as bride, Christ as bridegroom (or Christ as the eschatological Adam and the Church as the eschatological Eve). While Stephen utilizes both in various ways throughout the album, on the track Voltron his verse brings the two together. Voltron is, obviously, a venerable cultural touchstone for hip-hop which symbolizes separate, distinct individuals coming together to act cooperatively toward one common mission or purpose, with the analogy to the Body of Christ being obvious. But as I said, Stephen really effectively brings the two analogies together in his verse: "[Adam] even cleaved to Eve, she's his own now / And he is hers, Jesus and the Church be the pronouns (Engaged) / Committed to mission till the big day / The bridegroom will arrive soon, until then wait (Harvest) / Workin' like the first in the garden / The last Eve, sowin' that seed, she is all of us".

On another posse cut, Wrote It This Way featuring Lampmode label-mates Timothy Brindle and Hazakim, the emcees explore the ways that the Body can (and must be) diverse, while not being divided. Brindle delivers a typically stellar verse which celebrates the multiethnic nature of his own family unit as a microcosm for the truth that God sent His Son for all people, of every tongue, tribe, and nation. Stephen's verse might be even better and he sets it off with a flourish: "Christ's blood has identified us / Doesn't uniform us, but it unifies us / We can be diverse but still not be divided / We would be deformed if everyone was like us". He goes on to excoriate the notion that 'unity' means arbitrary conformity to some cultural identity, rather than unity in Christ as the distinct, diverse people that He created us to be.    

The theme of Christ as bridegroom and the Church as bride is explored further on tracks such as S.O.S. and Beauty and The Beast. The former track does so implicitly as Stephen writes a song that is about his literal love and appreciation for his actual wife, but in the context of the album the track gains added depth, given what the institution of marriage is meant to teach us about the Church. The latter track explores the theme in a more explicit manner, telling the story of Christ and the Church in an extended metaphor.

The titular, final track of the album reflects the opener, and an analogy is thereby drawn between God's missional character and that of the Church, the last missionary. Stephen releases a torrent of sensational rhymes over a slamming beat while bringing the themes of the album to fruition in spectacular fashion.  

Throughout the album the aesthetic and artistic qualities are absolutely top notch. On the rapping side of things, Stephen's lyricism is incredible as he packs intense doses of luminous content into his bars while marshaling intricate rhyme schemes and a breathless, masterful flow. Just listen to the way he absolutely dismantles a track like Reign & Rebellion -- phenomenal.

The beats are excellent for the most part, and range from old school, stripped down tracks like Enter:missionary and Fight Club to more complex, robust tracks which dominate the album. The delicious cherry on top of all this is the fact that the album is almost entirely devoid of any R&B or otherwise sing-y choruses, and often features insanely ill turntablism instead, such as on Rehoboam and Dividing Lies. If you're fond of the brand of raw, 'East Coast', grimy, boom-bap that has always been my muse, then this should suit your tastes ideally as well.

While I enjoyed Stephen the Levite's first album To Die is Gain, I felt it was a little rough around the edges and the production was somewhat lacking. Here he steps into the forefront of currently working hip-hop artists -- holy or secular -- with a well-polished, intelligent, challenging and edifying record that keeps your head nodding incessantly, both to the beat and in agreement. Not only that, but he has gone the extra mile and successfully crafted a true album, with a unified theme and message, and one that is vitally important for the world today: the Church is Christ's physical representation on Earth and the means for extending God's Grace to the world and establishing his kingdom, so it's incumbent upon us to repeat the act of Grace shown at the cross, and be salt and light to a world in need of redemption. Or, to quote Stephen one final time: "If you’re a Christian then you’re a member of / His physical witnesses sent to finish His mission up / Paul would call us His body with many limbs and functions / workin’ and servin’ till He returns in the endin’ but / Give it up! / until His Kingdom comes and the mission's done / we volitionally and sacrificially give Him us / (Get ‘em bruh) This is something we struggle with and it's tough / but much is required from us because we’ve been given much".

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[1] As a somewhat nitpick-y theological aside: Both Phanatik on Not My Own and Stephen on The First Missionary speak of God in mutable terms i.e. pre-creation 'conferencing' within the Godhead and 'coming to decisions' about how to create, or how to solve some problem etc. Given the limitations of language and of the rap format, I don't have a huge problem with the artistic license invoked here, but it is technically incorrect; because of God's immutability any talk of Him 'coming to decisions' is an anthropomorphism. This is not to deny the existence of divine counsel or community within the Godhead, only to affirm God's immutability.

Lyrical Theology. Holy Hip-Hop. Reformed Rap.

If you know me or have read my blog, you know that theology and rap music are two interests of mine. They have almost always been distinct and separate interests, for me. While I had heard some good (and lots of mediocre and bad) Christian rap back in the 90s, and early aughts, none of it was extremely theological in character. And even the best Christian material I heard from those times wasn't among the best hip-hop music being made, in terms of the aesthetic and artistic quality. Around the mid aughts I stopped keeping up with newer rap music in general and didn't have any connections that would alert me of quality Christian rap that was being released, so the little amount of it that I had heard was all that I was aware of.

Last month Challies -- a reformed blogger-pastor -- posted something about Shai Linne's new album The Attributes of God, giving the album very high praise. As a hip-hop aficionado myself, I was highly skeptical as to the actual quality of the rapping and beats (I had never seen Challies post anything about hip-hop), even if the theological content was excellent, as Challies was claiming (I trusted him on that count). After giving the album a listen on Spotify, I was stunned. Not only was the rapping top notch quality, but the content was vibrant, coherent, intelligent, Christ-centered, and unrelenting. The first comparison that came to mind when listening to Shai Linne's album wasn't golden-era, mid-90s, boom-bap rap music (though stylistically, that is his heritage), but Reformed theologians! Not only was this Christian rap, but it was lyrical theology and it was brilliant.


As I had become largely calloused toward, and weary of, new rap music in general, this was a revelation on two levels: re-igniting my interest in new rap music, period, as well as acting as a portal into the Reformed Rap or Holy Hip-Hop world, which I didn't even know existed (outside of The Cross Movement). Two of my interests and passions were combined thereby creating a more intense love for both of them.

After listening to The Attributes of God -- which shares the title of, and is kind of patterned after, the book by A.W. Pink -- I went on to listen to a few more of Shai Linne's albums such as Storiez and The Atonement, which were excellent as well. After this, I listened to some material from a guy named Timothy Brindle, who was featured on a number of Shai Linne's songs and who seemed to be a phenomenal emcee. It turned out he had two albums to his name, The Great Awakening and Killing Sin, which were both excellent. Though it's a somewhat tired touchstone for comparison, Brindle is comparable to a Christian Eminem, in that they both made waves in the secular battle circuit, and stylistically they have similarities.

Another artist that had collaborated with Shai Linne was named Evangel, and since his couple of verses were incredible, I sought out some more music by him. There were no solo albums of his on Spotify, but he was a member of a group called Christcentric who had a newer album out called The Ephesians Project, which is a hip-hop-album exposition of the entire book of Ephesians. His songs and verses on there were great, as was his song Beautiful Church which was on the compilation The Church. Evangel is just a beast with a wicked flow (but not a wicked message, of course).

Discovering one new incredible hip-hop artist would have itself been a revelation. That happens very rarely, especially in the current climate of hip-hop, which is fairly dismal. Having been introduced to three incredible rappers, who all have a solid amount of material recorded and released already, was just that much more amazing. Essentially discovering a whole new genre, one that strongly appeals to my intellectual and spiritual interests, which can actually enhance my relationship with the living God, and a genre which all of these phenomenal, newly discovered artists are working within was just that much more incredible.

I know that sounds like a lot of breathless, overzealous, hyperbolic rhetoric for some rap music, but I should tell you that I'm a very cynical and critical hip-hop consumer. Even if these guys were praising God and glorifying Christ with sound theology, but they had weak beats and rhymes, it wouldn't do much for me. But the actual quality of the lyrics and the rapping catapulted all three of them into my upper echelon of living, working rappers.

Since this discovery, I haven't listened to much of anything else on Spotify except my Lyrical Theology playlist, which is quite extensive. Lampmode records, which boasts both Shai Linne and Timothy Brindle on its roster, has other artists who I haven't even yet given a proper listen, who may also be great. Stephen the Levite, for instance, had two great tracks on The Church compilation, and I haven't yet listened to his solo album in its entirety. So, even with the new universe of Holy Hip-Hop opened to me, and having already explored it heavily, there's still more to discover, not to mention whatever else God has in store in the future, working through these artists and new ones. Hip-hop is back on my radar and it's being used to glorify the ruler of heaven and Earth.