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586
Artist: Peace 586
Label: Uprok Recordings
Before I disparage his latest
record, I’d like to acknowledge that everyone even remotely into Christian
rap and hip-hop owes a tremendous debt to Peace 586, at one time a member
of the seminal group Freedom of Soul, who, along with SFC and Brainstorm
Records, brought the sounds of RUN-DMC and the Beastie Boys into the Church.
FoS is, in a word, indispensable to the Christian community, and it’s debatable
whether there would be Christian hip-hop today without them.
That being said, 586,
Peace’s first solo record in five years, is a major disappointment. There
are multiple reasons why, but I’ll just touch on a few of them:
-
Peace is still putting out the
late ‘80s rap sound, which completely discounts the Gangsta Rap revolution
of the mid ‘90s. While this sound was catchy and endearing when performed
by Freedom of Soul in their heyday, it sounds painfully dated now.
-
Peace’s rhymes are extraordinarily
weak when put up against someone like Eminem, or even Soulheir the manCHILD
from Mars Ill. He’s writing lyrics with a structure more suited to rock
music than to rap, and it doesn’t come across well.
-
Peace’s lyrics are overly preachy
and youth groupy. They’re obnoxious for me to listen to—I can’t imagine
what a non-Christian would think of them.
-
Last—and most importantly—Peace
sounds awkward when he raps. This seems to be a new thing for him, as he
didn’t suffer this malady in Freedom of Soul or even his other solo records,
but because of it, 586’s best moments are when a guest emcee (JurnyBig
on "Reasons" or Sup the Chemist on "You Here") takes the mic. Peace, on
the other hand, never quite finds a groove to settle into.
We should expect more from a
visionary like Peace, and, if past efforts are any indication, he is more
than capable of delivering. This album is beyond hope, however, and one’s
money is better spent on an old Freedom of Soul record.
Michial Farmer 8/4/2001
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