Review: Lecrae's Rebel

One of the things that’s most attention-grabbing about Lecrae’s new release, Rebel, is the amount of passion he puts into each song. The love he has for Christ and the urgency he has in getting out the Lord’s message bathes the album in an emotional tone that makes it hard to resist. This rebel, who has recently succeeded in topping various Christian and secular charts and has pushed holy hip-hop further into public consciousness, is literally compelled to ride or die: “Lord, kill me if I don’t preach the gospel/I’m still in my 20’s but I’ll die if I got to,” he proclaims on “Go Hard.”

“Breathin’ to Death,” with its haunting mélange of mournful singers, strings and piano, stirringly captures the desperation felt by a believer who can’t stop sinning. Lecrae’s voice ebbs and flows from a whisper to a roar as the subject of this song suffers through an internal struggle of good vs. evil. “Still I refuse to let your truths make me better/I'd rather eat flies and maggots instead of bread/and its killing me slow but I can’t get it through my head/You were stabbed, You were murdered/and for me is why You bled/but I spit on your bloody face as if I never cared,” he laments. “Desperate,” with an attention-grabbing chorus sung by Cam, similarly is laden with tangible sorrow. Both songs do not leave the protagonists wandering in desperation, however; they culminate with a desire to reconnect with God. “Desperate” ends with an acknowledgement that “even when I feel lost I know in You I am found.”

Other songs on the album defiantly speak of contentment with love for God and the goodness that He can offer. “Don’t Want Waste Your Life,” featuring Dwayne Triumph and Cam, with super rapid-fire lyrics, relays that true living can not be found in a spouse, a house, 2.5 kids and a 401(k), but rather in Christ. (Lyrics can be found for this song and all the others on the album at ReachRecords.com (choose Lyrics and filter by artist). “Identity,” with a driving, futuristic beat, declares “you can’t define my worth/by nothing found on God’s green earth/My identity is found in Christ/found in Christ.” “Got Paper” is an indictment of materialistic, secular hip-hop. When the chorus begins with a sampled brag of “I got money, I got paper,” the response is, “So what, who cares? I got Jesus, baby.”

The word “rebel” on the album art is styled like a dictionary pronunciation, implying that if you look up “rebel” in the dictionary, you’ll find Lecrae there. But the take-home message is that by listening to this album and digging deeper through prayer and Bible reading, you can embody the definition of “rebel” in these soulless, corrupt times as well.

Additional standout songs: “Truth,” “Fall Back,” “I’m a Saint”