Reviewed by Andrew Midgley

If you, like me, have not yet found an artist that you can listen to for 50 straight tracks, Willie Will is unlikely to change that. As one embarks on the aural odyssey of 'The GIFT', however, not only do the heavenly bodies complete their arc in the sky and nations rise and fall, but a grudging sense of respect develops for a man who is basically setting an entire Reformed Systematic Theology to rap music. John Piper sermons are sampled throughout (complete with incongruous jazz accompaniment on opener "No Better News") and the Reformed church's Five Solae (Scripture, grace, faith, Christ and God) each receive a track outlining their importance. As befits both his Calvinist persuasion and his hip-hop medium, Will is strident in his delivery of maxims and, quite quixotically, the album works best when it sounds like a rapper reading Piper's Desiring God out loud. When Will indulges in the confessional - "You made a covenant with me/I'll never know why but I know you'll keep your promise", he raps on "The Promise Keeper", riffing on the theme of the heavenly bridegroom - it is a bit awkward that he keeps referring to his husband even though you know that he's referencing Jerimiah 31:32-34. When he delves into metaphor we hear "To God my self-righteousness was a dirty menstrual pad" on "Nothin' But The Blood (ftg Jazz Digga)" - a rather distracting, and potentially alienating, image to establish divine sovereignty. So by the time one is half-way through the LP (and beginning to think about needing to shave), one is quite settled into Will's thematic default of spitting Calvinist doctrines and can do without occasional personal testimony or adorning similes. Furthermore, 'The GIFT' is hardly musically experimental: although Will's flow is experienced and compelling, his samples outside of Piper extend to Johnny Cash ("You Were There") and Stevie Wonder ("Soli Deo Gloria"), a highly ironic echo of Bill Withers' "Just The Two Of Us" on "Trinitarian Love", and strains of Erykah Badu's "On And On" on "Press On (The Perseverance Of The Saints)", the latter of which puts to bed any notion that Will's priorities lie with achieving mainstream success. "I'ma leave you with Scripture to encourage you," he raps, before causing panic among Bible-wielding listeners unable to flick the pages in time: "Jude verses 17 through 23/Second Timothy 2:10 then 4:5 through the work of the ministry/but James 1:12 before anything/Matthew 10:22 then 13:18 through 23/then to read 10:13 of First Corinthians. . ." There's also not much in the way of theological balance to his exegesis - you get the feeling that Will would conflate Arminianism with Semipelagianism without dropping a mic - but his fervour is never less than engaging. "In Ephesians one thirteen it certainly occurred to me", he muses on "Forever Yours", "It says 'when I believed'/Indeed I was sealed with the promised Holy Spirit/He is the guarantee of the inheritance I'll receive/please read Hebrews 10:13 for more of what I mean'." While it is irritating that Will overlooks the aorist participle 'pisteusantes'' disputed sense of when the believer is sealed by the Holy Spirit, no other rapper except perhaps Shai Linne has you reaching for a Greek lexicon. 'The GIFT' is determinedly a play for minds before hearts, its rapped Reformed catechism splicing a reverence for Scriptural exposition that sometimes borders on the Puritanical ("The sword of the Spirit is the Word of the Lord. . . Stop playing games man/put away the chess board", Will directs on "I Got Mine (Sola Scriptura)"), so if you don't have time to read Calvin's Institutes, you may just have time for this.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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