Search - Disciples of Christ :: Pullin No Punches

Wow, is this some old school Christian Rap?!

Jon L. Capogrossi | Arcadia, CA | 08/08/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Well, it puts a smile on my face to see this album cover, I used to have this tape, havent listened to it in years, but it's cool to see this, brings back some memories.DOC (Disciples of Christ) were some christian brothers from the L.A. area, who, similar to DC Talk, used to both rap and sing. And, like DC Talk, the more albums they made, the more they sang, the less they rapped, and the better their singing got. In the beginning they had a white dude who actually played drums, then he left the group and they became more studio oriented. But they carried a message of God and mentioned a lot in their rhymes about the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, and of the importance of the Holy Spirit in a Christian's daily life. That stands out in my mind.Well, the album IS from 1993, so keep that in mind. The first song was the best one on here, "We Got It", with a music track that kind of reminds me of En Vogue's first song "Hold On". Also there's the song that was sort of this album's "Hit", which was "God gave Rock and Roll to you"- which they did with Christian rock group Bride.the rest of the album has some high points and low points, artisticaly. Like DC Talk, the best parts are usually the singing and the least favorite parts usually involve rapping. "Can we fall in love again" was another high point, an all singing jam where they tell GOd "I've lost my way, I want to fall in love with Christ again"...a good song...Well, that's about it. What can I say, this is 1992/93 Christian rap. Obviously, "rap lyric-wise", there's no comparison with today's Holy Hip Hop groups with real tight lyrical skills, like Cross Movement. However, I like to think of early 90's christian rap as being ahead of it's time in some ways. The mixing of Rock and rap started with RunDMC, but groups like DOC moved things ahead in that style, which sort of pre-dates Limp Biskit. Also, the whole style of having one artist who both sings and raps was a regular item in Christian rap music way before people like Nelly ever started.If you are a fan of Christian Hip Hop, or maybe if you liked groups like Bell Biv Devoe or BoyzIIMen back in the day, and you want to hear some "back to basics" original christian rap, this could be the jam for some."