REVEAL – GOD choosez the foolish

Artist Name: REVEAL
Album Name: GOD choosez the foolish (1 Corinthians 1:27)
Year Completed: 2007

A once homeless California native, now high-desert (Victorville) resident, speaks about numerous biblical concepts and life lessons. Rhymes and beats sound very heavily influenced by late 90′s underground hip-hop.

Track 1 – Flawless Effortless
This track definitely has a nice SOTL (dark, grimy, underground) feel to it. It reminds me of a late 90′s Wu-Tang Killa Beez instrumental (see ‘The Swarm’). REVEAL has a smooth, confident flow on this; definitely a nice intro to the album. He gives an overview of the Lord taking control of his life, bringing him from L.A. to the desert, employing his rapping for the Lord, the lack of evangelism in most circles and a number of other topics. A solid beginning theme to hopefully the rest of the album.

Track 2 – Soulspot
The beat on this track isn’t necessarily bad, but it sounds pretty pre-packaged; I’m not really feeling it. Soulspot focuses on sharing the truth in preparation of the return of Christ both on sharing the need of faith for the unbelieving and exhortation towards believers. I dig the line “Like the middle east I ran, but God kept pushin His plans until I finally listened.”

Track 3 – Valley of the Shadow
Valley of the Shadow has a really dark almost post-apocalyptic feel to it, reminiscent to an 80′s cyborg movie, but not enough to match with an EL-P beat (think Fantastic Damage or Delorean). REVEAL speaks about the impending doom of death that faces all unbelievers, the hope that can be found in Christ and the believer’s peace when it comes to facing death.

Track 4 – Live
Live is right! Whooo, this beat is a BANGER! “This is live; live like I’m in the place! We all see the wrath or grace. He can be your savior or your judge. I know God is love, but He’s also just.” The theme of this track is straight-forward. Either you will receive grace or wrath, but all people will face God.

Track 5 – Selah (se·lah/?s?l?/)
Exclamation: (in the Bible) Occurring frequently at the end of a verse in Psalms and Habakkuk, probably as a musical direction. REVEAL focuses on the importance of focusing and meditating on His word. Not only hearing it but acting on it. James 1:22-23

Track 6 – Voicemail
A track of a number of voicemail messages left for REVEAL.

Track 7 – The Life
Dope beat on this one, but it took a few listens for me to hear it. This track focuses on the evident fruit of REVEAL’s life. ‘The Life’ is about just that living ‘The Life’ of a Christian.

Track 8 – Toxic feat. Proklame
The world provides nothing but toxicity. The enemy’s goal is to kill steal and destroy, but Christ can bring healing and life. That’s the message of this track; encouraging unbelievers to come to the Lord.

Track 9 – Ezekiel
This sounds like another Killa Beez track. It seems out of date, but stills sounds well made. Man is appointed to live once and then the judgement. REVEAL encourages us as believers to live our life completely for Christ and to stop letting the devil deceive us.

Track 10 – The Answer feat. JMC
Not really feeling this beat. This is another track that sounds like a handful of pre-programmed samples and the pan flute (I think) is mixed way too high. The synth sounds off and there isn’t enough change to the beat. Overall, the beat kills the rest of the track. I couldn’t concentrate on the lyrics initially. After further listens, REVEAL and JMC are making the point that Christ is ultimately the answer that we are all seeking in life. Good message, but the beat made me not want to listen.

Track 11 – Your My Crown
I dig the focus of this track. You don’t here a lot of dudes writing songs about how much they love their wives and how blessed they are to have them. Not only that, but REVEAL also acknowledges that Francesca (his wife) was obviously provided by the Lord. He goes through the story of meeting his wife in rehab, to the building of their relationship to some of the struggles they have faced as a couple, but ultimately God holding them together. REVEAL sees the weakness and failures in his role as a husband, but values his wife according to Proverbs 12:4 “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband,…”

Track 12 – You
REVEAL speaks on his refusal to believe in the cessation of sign gifts and shares his thoughts on why he believes it is unbiblical; from the acts of the early church to the words of Jesus. He exhorts us to walk by the Spirit and use the spiritual gifts we have been provided. He also touches on not forsaking the gathering of the congregation. Hebrews 10:25

Track 13 – My Child feat. Upright
My Child, is a worshipful track focusing on the sonship of believers. More specifically, REVEAL being taught by God about life and the word of God. Teaching him both by knowledge and life lessons. I don’t really dig the beat, but it’s not so bad as to distract from the lyrics.

Track 14 – Mafioso with this Gospel
Hard hitting bass and hand claps start off this track. The name of the track is enough to understand the theme.

Track 15 – Choose this Day feat. Broken
Hard beat, nice samples. This track features Broken and speaks about choosing THIS day who you will suffer. Not only because we ought to serve the Lord, but also because we don’t know when we will die. This is one of the best tracks on the album along with Live, Which Category, No Defeat and Flawless Effortless.

Track 16 – No Defeat feat. Nate Moses and Proklame
No Defeat speaks about our daily and ultimate victory in Christ. Though we might face losses, ultimately we are undefeated in Christ. This would work well as a relational evangelism track.

Track 17 – All or Nothing feat. Dirt
Dirt, head and emcee of Shadow of the Locust joins REVEAL on this track. All or Nothing is about the constant battle between submitting to the Holy Spirit or giving in to the lusts of the flesh. We either give ‘All or Nothing’. The samples of whoever it is speaking is a nice touch and fitting the feel and theme of the track and Dirt drops some nice lines.

Track 18 – Which Category?
This is a vocal sample of someone speaking about the two categories of Christians who when they look back on their life, they will either say to themselves “Why didn’t I…” or “I’m so glad I…”

I think ‘God choosez the foolish’ starts off and ends strong with a number of average/decent tracks in between intermingled with a few tracks that could have been left off the album. Many of the songs would have been better presented with other beats chosen/produced. As a whole, although I wouldn’t say the album necessarily impressed me, it also wasn’t a bad album. It was moderately interesting and although it would have been much stronger if reduced to about 8 tracks and released as an EP I give it a score of 3 out of 5.

REVEAL seems to have a good deal of talent and a talented group of crew members to pull from for production and features. Due to the fact this was a first album, unreleased and done almost 5 years ago; I look forward to hearing how REVEAL has grown and what he will do for his next album.