Pastor Fredo Ramos: Here we go. In 3 and 2 and 1. What is good everybody? Welcome back to the Theology and Show. It's Pastor Fredo here again with you, and listen.
It's been a few months since mister morale and the big steppers dropped, and, man, I don't know about you, but I have plenty of church members who have been asking me my thoughts on it. Partly why because they have great taste in music, so they've listened to the album, which I'm grateful for. I got church members who got good taste in music, but, because it's such a important album, I think. We'll get into it. I wanna talk a little, perspective on his album, but also offer some theological, points to that I think are really really important.
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But here we go. Mister Maron, the big seppers. 1st and foremost, I gotta say this. I am a fan of Kendrick Lamar. I am a big fan of Kendrick Lamar.
So much so that Kendrick Lamar for sure is in my top 5 hip hop artists of all time. That will probably be another show of itself because that is just gonna take too long, and It's hard for me to number great, but he's in that circle of top 5. Man, as far as this album goes, I would say this is a timeless album. Here's why. A few reasons.
Level 1, the content to me is much more than just kind of the pop level surface stuff that rappers generally rap about. Now we know this to be Kendrick's, m o for as long as we can remember going back to untitled 80, like he just does, music. He writes lyrics. He raps in a way that I think is timeless because of his content. He's able to take crazy ideas and make them very simple and digestible, which is kind of what we're after in the show.
We're trying to take the lofty and connect it to the regular through trends shows and theology. Right? And so Kendrick continues to be a master at that, which is why I think he won the Pulitzer prize for crying out loud. Like how many other rappers have done that? It's pretty insane.
Right? Everyone lost their minds when Eminem won an Oscar because I think that was the first time a hip hop artist won an Oscar. I could be wrong, but someone could fact check that. But man, Kendrick won a Pulitzer prize. The guy knows how to write.
He knows how to deliver. He knows how to rap, man. He's a rapper's rapper. It's content is timeless. Secondly, sonically, his music choice, the sound choices, like even opening with, the album in United in Grief, like it's this crazy chaotic, almost jazz kind of field track to where you don't know what's gonna happen next.
Like sonically, he makes decisions that I think continue to allow his projects, his albums to not just be stuck in a particular moment, but be something that we can go back to over and over. The third reason why I think his work is timeless and this is such an important album because he deals with human issues that I think will continue to speak to us and inform us throughout the decades. Right? So it's one thing when you go back and you listen to, an album someone did maybe 30 years ago, and you you can tell that what they were saying was important. It was artistic.
It was well received, and it also was really informed by the moment. Right? Kendrick does all those things, but I think he also does so in a way that will leave us continuing the conversation, beyond this year, beyond the next few years. It'll be something that we go back to, and so for me, it's a timeless project. I'm a big fan of it.
Now, theologically, this is where things get interesting. What I think about this album is I think Kendrick is just dumping everything that he's been processing through. Right? And so here here's what I wanna do in terms of giving Kendrick the benefit of the doubt, which I think we should do in theology too. Right?
Because it's often the case if you study theology, there's a temptation to kind of find your camp, like, where you stand on certain issues and then think of all the reasons why you don't stand over here and then maybe even start to put those people down who stand over there. You start to figure out why you're right and they're wrong because they stand over there and you stand over here. Right? There's a way in which we can narrow ourselves rather than having our hands open and being a bit more humble with our theology and being a bit more open to man. We have a particular perspective, and that's what I wanna do with Kendrick.
I wanna give them benefit of doubt. He's coming from a particular perspective. And to be honest with you, I think he's still trying to figure things out. There's times where he says, like, man, I'm I told you I'm a Christian just not today. Right?
I wanna pay attention to that. And rich spirit, he mentions father and son. There's other there's other moments where he talks about the Lord of all lords, which is his ego. Right? So to me, I'm like, wow.
I think he's got concepts that I would acknowledge as, yeah, like, theologically that sounds like someone who is aware that he is a broken individual and his ego and his selfishness can get the best of him. Right? I think there are moments where he talks about he even finds it difficult to love his neighbor. That's I think in the second or third verse of savior. Right?
So to me, I am aware that Kendrick knows scripture. I think he is doing what he can to, maintain whatever tradition he came out of in which they believed scripture to be God's foundational word and and a foundation for life and following Jesus. He probably in my in my estimation might reject the a more American usage of the word Christian, right, even though he says he's a Christian. But what I do notice in this album theologically is that he begins to incorporate and add to, certain aspects of new age thinking. He mentions an individual by the name of Eckhart Tolle, who obviously you can look up his teachings and the things that he, believes are convictions that help him shape his own life and his view of the world.
Right? And so, honestly, I think Kendrick is still is trying to figure things out by maybe taking together what he's learned in the past about his maybe if he's had a Christian heritage, but also things that he's learning now through therapy and psychology and some other, disciplines to maybe help him understand his own past and experiences. And so I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt. I wanna embrace the fact that I am on my own journey with Jesus even on a theological journey, and I wanna give him the benefit of doubt that he's doing the same thing too. And so I wanna be open to him because check this out.
It would be crazy for any one of us to make a statement on where you stand with Jesus because of one piece of art. Alright. That would be a real challenging thing to do. And so I think we need to receive her for what it is. It's a hip hop album.
If you wanna enjoy it, great. If you don't wanna enjoy it, that's fine too. But I think there's a lot to enjoy from this work. I think it's brave of him to not only talk about his experience in therapy, his his his addiction to to sex, his need to confess that to his wife to work through that. I think it's brave of him to address, social ills that we face whether it be structural racism, whether it be even the hypocrisy of cancel culture, and the way that we try to approach, bringing justice to the land.
Right? Kendrick does not hold back in his view on those things. And so I appreciate that. I also appreciate his vulnerability and willing able to or his ability to speak to other hip hop artists. Mother I sober, I think is a important song in which he not just speaks from his own pain and and past, but he, I think, is also encouraging other artists to no longer bury their pain and chains and tattoos, but to experience transformation, and liberation, which he speaks about at the end through vulnerability.
Right? And I would say theologically that's an important step to take as we imagine our journeys with Jesus confession is an important avenue for us forward if we're going to come to terms with who we really are and the way that God views us and who he really is and who he wants to make us into in his son Jesus. Right? I think, Kendrick is taking steps in that direction. You may agree with that, you may not.
I'm okay with that, but I think, it's important for us to be open that man, he's just, I think, getting a lot off his chest in this album. And to some degree, he's he maybe isn't even sure where he's at. I love his line where he talks about, you know, should he still, trust like Kyrie or should he sweat in the bed for 2 weeks. Right? Like, he's he's working through his own convictions on on on what he thinks about certain things.
And so we gotta give him space and grace, for that to happen. But in all man, I deeply appreciate this project. I think it's something we'll go back to over and over again. Where I personally rank it for me, I still got good kid mad city as like the tip top. I think that's the that's the crown right there, for a lot of other reasons, but I still think mister morale big suffers is a major contribution to hip hop in general and is deeply relevant to us.
And I think administered to us even as Christians, as we think about our own journeys of confession, trauma, and and experiencing the transformation we ultimately need not through new age work, but through the person of Jesus of Nazareth who's come to us as God in human form. And I think he offers us a better way in picking up our cross and following him. And so, man, those are my those are my thoughts. I was gonna say 2¢, but this is a lot longer than 2¢. Probably cost you more than that.
So, love you guys. Grace and peace. See you on the next episode. Thank you so much for watching the Theology and Show. Please like and subscribe.
Stay tuned to everything that we got going on. We have so much coming and I cannot wait to get it out to you. So make sure to keep following us. Peace.