Building a Memory: #DC Talk

28 November 2020

DC TALK “COLORED PEOPLE” | The Racial Brawl and the Fight For Love

Photo by Matheus Viana from Pexels

Pardon me, your epidermis is showing, sir. I couldn’t help but note your shade of melanin.

At the end of the 80s a trio gathered in Virginia’s state, USA, and they made difference while they were a band. This group consisted of Toby Mckeehan (better known as Toby Mac), Michael Tait and Kevin Max. Together they released five studio albums and made some concerts around the world, which some of them were later released in video.

But, what this group made of different? Firstly, they consisted of two white men and a negro (they made a song about this!); secondly, they mixed hip-hop, rap and rock; and, lastly, all of this was made in a Christian environment. The recommendation I did on the blog, from the album Free At Last, from 1992, there’s something more about their history and some prizes they had won. Alas their last studio album was in 1998, although from time to time they reunite for commemorative concerts, but no new songs as DC Talk, the band.

Since their start, the lyrics were always turned to the Christian view, but never forgetting the world view with its flaws and needs. In 1995 the album Jesus Freak was released, probably the band’s biggest hit, and in it the lyrics talk about spiritual themes (as Jesus’ acceptance, hypocrisy, atheism) and socials (seeking a friend’s forgiveness, racism, facing the tolerance and acceptance), themes that today, in the high of 2020, are prevailing. Among them, I want to highlight the song Colored People.

Pardon me, your epidermis is showing, sir. I couldn’t help but note your shade of melanin.

That’s how the song starts, right to the subject it wants to talk about. It sounds racist, doesn’t it? Even more inside North America’s context and history, we see a past and present of conflicts. We've got names who fought and keep on fighting for this cause, like Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Malcom X, and many others. Recently we had the sad event with George Floyd, a black man who had his life shortened by the hands of a white police officer, a spark that rose a great of wave of riots in the USA. But song takes a different route.

I tip my hat to the colourful arrangement, ‘cause I see the beauty in the tones of our skin.

This excerpt shows that, even though there are bad people around us, there are those who know how to admire the differences, who understand that the divergence make us stronger and turn us into better beings. It isn’t one’s colour that defines them good or evil, better or worse. It comes from their character.

God made everything perfectly, even more the human being. He made all races and types, and made them at His own image and similarity. For Him there is no difference of colours.

“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Genesis 1:27

And since we know that, we mustn’t create conflicts because of this kind of situation. We must unite to deliver better conditions for everyone. We are human beings and live in the very same space. Let’s teach our kids that their origins don’t make them superior. Everybody has a history, and we all have a fight to win. We are in the same team seeking the most humanitarian and egalitarian way for everyone. Even not being an easy and fair fight, together we are stronger, like this beautiful chorus reinforces:

We’re coloured people, and we live in a tainted place.
We’re coloured people, and they call us the human race.
We’ve got a history so full of mistakes,
and we are coloured people who depend on a Holy Grace.

This song was a suggestion that my brother, Matheus, sent. You can check the song and read the lyrics in the links below, as watch this text's video on YouTube (English subtitles enabled).

Give your suggestion in the comments or on Instagram. Who knows if it can be the next to show up here!?

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/GLDuaMZ-yds

Lyrics: https://genius.com/Dc-talk-colored-people-lyrics

Listen on: Deezer | Spotify | YouTube | YouTube Music

3 September 2020

(Albums Recommendations) DC Talk - Free At Last [1992]

There are some albums that follow us everywhere we go. Some of them you first listened to a long time ago and, when you give it another a look, it feels as great as the first experience. This is what DC Talk's Free At Last means to me.

The first time I've heard of them was sometime between 2001 and 2002. My brother was part of a youth group at the local church where they played "different" songs than we were used to hear during church's services. It was a mix of rap/hip-hop and rock. The only thing I knew about this album was only an unofficial recording that was labelled in Portuguese as "dois homens de branco e um de preto" (two men in white and one in black). The song that mostly played while at home was "Say The Words", because it was relevant for whatever this youth group was doing, and that's the first one I remember listening of them.

Not much time after these events I mentioned, I discovered it was the album Free At Last by DC Talk. The album is their third release. Not differently from their debut album, in 1989, they made some difference in churches as a whole, by being "indecent" for the traditional and "interesting" for the young.

The band consists, mainly, of three guys that, as ironically as the label I remember from the album, are two white men and a negro (there's a song in this album similarly named to this). They are Toby Mac, Michael Tait and Kevin Max. Each one of them have a different style in music and, while together, they made something unique and interesting of listening to. All of them followed different careers in music after the band was put in hiatus, at first as solo artists. The only one who really had a big name in solo career was Toby Mac. Michael Tait (who had the shortest solo career of them) is heavily remembered by being Newsboys' current singer, and Kevin Max by being the lead singer in Audio Adrenaline's album King and Queens (2013), although his solo career is also promising.

This album was named after the conclusion of Martin Luther King's most famous speech "I Have A Dream", which is sampled at some point in the song of same name. As mentioned earlier, the three guys in this band have different influences in music and it's noticeable while listening the nearly 1-hour-long album (or over than an hour if we listen to the 10th anniversary edition), with some songs flirting more with rock, others being more hip-hoppy and some more chilling. Imagining this blend without listening seems very odd, but the final result is incredible and, as I also said before, unique. The rhythm is contagious and invites you to dance. Well, some churches that have dance groups used to use some of this band's songs because of the beat and the message they were singing.

The album also had some prizes and recognition like the Best Rock Gospel Album at the Grammy Awards in its 36th festival (1993), three songs winning the Dove Awards in the 24th (1993) and 25th (1994) editions of the Dove Awards, and the #9 position in The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music by the CCM Magazine in 2001.

The songs I like the most, as they are played in the album, are: