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Selah, pause and think on these things! There’s no problem with “goin’ hard” for the Most High as you “make war” because there’s times when you just have to “pump up the bass” to show folk “who you represent”. At the same time, there’s moments when it’s just good to sit back and reflect upon the goodness of the Lord in a laidback, calm manner. Such is the case when you take a good listen to Brooklyn’s own Jas Knight and the jazz- infused The Psalter.
First off, Jas Knight the artist (whose name fittingly sounds similar to “jazz night”) is a skilled pianist and musical composer/ arranger. His sound is heavily rooted in jazz with a slight touch of soul/ funk and contemporary gospel mixed in. This is personified right from jump on “Stapler”, the opening track of the album. Expert drum work, keyboarding, and guitar riffs provide an intro to what amounts to an extended jazz set submitted to Christ. Jas then introduces us to the first Psalm being spotlighted, number 100. This provides some live trumpeting patterned into a contemporary- styled bassline with excellent harmony accentuated by a reasonable auto-tune background.The third track on the album is an interlude, “Contrapuntal”, that definitely fits the definition of its title. The three speakers bring commentary about the psalms, with several moments of each overlapping the other, in a way that is a bit busy and tough to listen to. This is followed up by a description of the Psalms by Emmaus Darjeeling on the song of the same name as this theologian. It also features a free flowing piano composition that brings to mind the “Heart First Remix”, not surprisingly featuring some adlibs from shai himself. The 1980’s feel to the “Psalm 91 Outro” was a nice change of pace and provides a little nostalgia in the midst of the timeless jazz sounds. There’s more of the live, soothing atmosphere vibe continuing down the playlist as Jas orchestrates a move through the Psalms in a calculated manner.
There’s not much that can go wrong with reiterating the truth of the Lord, especially with the crisp clear instrumentation that Jas provides. He combines the approach of simply reiterating the psalm of the moment with taking bits and pieces of the psalm and making it fit the vibe of the music. Add in somespittage provided by R- Swift (“Psalm 136b), Da’ Truth (“Psalm 91”), and the previously mentioned Mr. linne (“Psalm 37”) and there is a nice poetry club feel to this project. Jas also ensures that the listener realizes or is refreshed in the fact that our Messiah is spoken of all through these psalms on “Christ In The Psalms”.
All analysis aside, this is quite simply a project that can be loaded into the ipod or CD player of any and every fan of music. Whether it’s the rap enthusiast or the urban/ R& P aficionado, The Psalter provides a relaxing, worshipful change of pace. The focus of this project isn’t on the lyrical prowess or the musical composition, so much as on the worship- worthy value of the Psalms. Grab your Bible, push play on this 5 star project, and let the beauty of His holiness dwell with you this jazz night.
DaSouth.com stars:
Theophanies...what are they? What does God’s appearance have to do with God dwelling through the supreme revelation of His Son? Why was it that God thought it right for Jesus to live as a Jew, revealing the oracles of God through them? These can be some of the many questions that can be raised when coming across a topic that honestly, the majority of Christians have no clue exists.
Well, no longer do you have to wait to go to seminary to know what this means, for a group by the name of Hazakim (Jewish for “strong ones”) has come through with “Theophanies,” a project that was so long in the making that Phanatik on CMR’s last group album made mention of the wait! After listening to this album through and through I just have to say that the perspective given of the Gospel through Jewish men by Hazakim is needed, due to the fact that no one bothers with this. Either Reformed theologians keep it hushed, or some Charismatic misapply OT Scriptures and it’s time to get the record straight.
When the album starts, you’re not introduced to the rhyme flows yet, but an introduction. When I say an introduction, I mean something that was crafted because when you get into the use of violins and character narration of what the Jews were waiting for in a Messiah after seeing false Messiahs fall is something that helps you to see why the Pharisees were the way they were towards Jesus, even though they were wrong. Another thing that this establishes is the heart that Hazakim has towards unbelieving Jews. Like I said up above, Christians have been chillingly silent towards Jews and the evangelism of Jews is something that should grieve any heart because there is next to zero efforts towards reaching people who can read the Law of Moses, and are veiled to the gospel of Christ. Many of us don’t really know of the treatment that has been shown towards the Jewish people, even by theologians that we have upheld from the Reformation.
With that said, the production on this album has a noticeable Jewish flavor to beats, and it’s fitting that this influence is best noticed on the tracks “Genesis 18,” “Genesis 32,” “Exodus 3,” and “Judges 13” for these are the chapters in the Old Testament where the Theophanies took place. A theophany is an appearance of God towards man, which are the appearances to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and parents of Samson. With these tracks they go forth in “lyrical theology” (thanks shai linne!) as they rap about the passage-titled songs. Besides the theophany tracks, there were some highly notable ones as well, such as “Salvation Plan,” “Passover Lamb,” “Crucifixion Description,” “Heavy Laden,” “Shamayim of Gold,” and even more!
“Salvation Plan” is just a song that you will consider to be classic to the extra degree. I was glad that Hazakim saved this beat for themselves, and was also very excited to hear Stephen the Levite absolutely rip his verses! The topic of this song was very well spoken on, for it dealt with the reason for the sacrificial system and how God laid out His salvation plan. “Crucifixion Description” is a track that everyone has heard of through the very moving video put together with this song, which explains the medical things that Christ went through on His way to offering Himself as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Although physical pain was the least of the sacrifice that Jesus offered, for He became sin even in not ever falling prey to it, it was apart of what Jesus did to free us from sin and it’s effects in the end. “Passover Lamb” provides that perspective of the Jew that I was also speaking of in the beginning of this review, for Anthony provided through his rhymes, a story of how one of the Jews wouldn’t respond to Moses’ command to spread the blood of a lamb on their doors before the Angel of Death was to take the firstborn, then Michael comes through with one of the Jews that would accept that command of Moses to put the blood on the doorpost. Then, in the same song, they connect that incident to the future sacrifice of Christ as that Passover lamb, which brings me to a point that I really want to make with this.
The trademark that I have seen from Hazakim, besides the Jewish influence on beats, is the gift of Michael and Anthony to tell vivid stories in their music. The fact that Messianic Judaism isn’t something Holy Hip Hop is known to bring forth, they certainly establish vivid tales of aspects of the culture of a Jewish man or woman to and overwhelmingly “Greek” audience. Look forward to the track “Heavy Laden,” with which Hazakim share their burdens of ministry and life on a track, even having a visual of one who doesn’t want to bear their own cross and ends up picking it back up again. When you hear rap artists do this, it shows the power of the art form to convey things to people in a way that they may not have heard it before.
One interesting, and dare I say, humorous track was when Hazakim decided to go back to the 80’s after the song “Mercy” and have a female singing about His mercy. With this track I just saw Hazakim having fun with what they were doing, and although it may throw some off with doing this, it made me laugh and accept it, because they wanted to do music and they did it, although I would have left the starting of that Eighties Mix outside of the original “Mercy” track at the end. Speaking of the song “Mercy,” I found it very cool that they used the same beat that was originally used in a response to Craig Lewis and his attacks on Christian Hip Hop, because for one it showed that they weren’t responding just to make noise to Craig and it is evident in that they used the beat for a more worthy topic, which also brought a worthy feature with MuzeOne on the guest rhymes.
With all that has been said about this album, there is one song that I want to highlight with its lyrics, as well as another surprise....reggae! The name of the song is “Kadosh,” and if you are unfamiliar with Hebrew, kadosh is the word for Holy, so that when Isaiah saw the glory of the LORD, he heard the seraphim say, “Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh.....”Seeing that the first Hebrew word that I learned in Christian college before I transferred after my second year was kadosh, it was very special to have this track as a conclusion to the album. When the intro started, we had clips of someone speaking about the holiness of God, but when the reggae artist started speaking “Kadosh! Kadosh! Holy Holy! , just imagine my expression with these words said in response while listening: “Wow they actually did it!” Then, as to not even be more excited when listening to this song, Anthony came through with lyrics of full conviction, check out these lines below:
“I clarify my conclusion with a quote from Paul/”He’s the image of the invisible God in literal physical form”/its specified in the epistle of John(1John)/”No one has seen the Father, save the Son, but when you see Him you seen the Father/cuz they are one in the same, in substance and name, glory and attributes/the deity of Messiah isn’t up for dispute/and anyone who claims the opposite is a false prophet and speaks contrary to God’s doctrine./So when they tell you there is no evidence in the Old Testament for the Incarnation/you’ve got Biblical reference that God dwelled amongst men when He so desired/ and He did it ultimately in Jesus the Messiah”
I mean...after hearing stuff like that, just do what the song says, “Kadosh! Kadosh! Holy! Holy!”
Point blank, this album is a milestone in Christian Hip Hop, for we have a picture of what Paul and the early Christian believers had; a Jewish representation of the Gospel. This album is not a party album, it’s a sit down and listen album with discussion and reflection that is needed after. This is a type of album that should invigorate someone’s faith and study and pursuit of who God is, why He said what He said, did what He did, and how it applies for our lives today. When I say that this album was carefully crafted, I may be making an understatement, because they even went all the way to using an accordion in one of the theophany tracks(buy the album to find out which one), using violins and even composition pieces on the interludes, and aside from the fact that they could have left out the tags of saying that this was Hip Hologetics volume 2, which made it sound more like a mixtape than an album, this is officially named a classic. I pray that many will be blessed to hear what Hazakim has to say, and most of all, that believers in Christ will appreciate that He in fact appeared in the flesh as a precursor to the Messiah that dwelt on the earth as God with us, never being ashamed of loving us even though we rebel against Him, and paid the price for our sins in dying and rising again!
