The Battery’s Two is essentially a concept album about an aging (but still dope) rapper/producer combo who love Jesus and hip hop, but are on a “jurny” to make “peace” with the results of choosing to simultaneously pursue both of those passions.
The Sound
Its soundtrack is textured with spacey boom bap that recalls their classic Earthworm catalog and is more accessible than The Battery’s first team effort (appropriately titled: One). Often, after Jurny Big concludes his surgically-precise lyrical reflections on the life of a blue-collar MC, the tracks extend themselves for several minutes. It’s not filler – it’s welcomed vibe.
The Content
The questions posed by Peace 586 and JB are actually some of the hardest any “Christian rapper” will face. When deeply considered, it’s easy to avoid the public pitfalls of their mainstream MC brethren: In lyrics and life – don’t chase women or money. Don’t drink, smoke, cuss, and chew or hang out with those who do.
Instead, it’s the deeper issues that repeatedly creep into one’s mind that are more challenging to answer: When do I call it quits? Is my family proud of me? Is my God proud of me? How do I react when I feel my brothers are doing it wrong, betraying me, or questioning my faith and motives?
The Critics
What’s intriguing is that, inevitably, The Battery will have to deal with some of the genre’s harshest critiques about the topic of this album. Some will ask where The Gospel meat is to be found on a record by a rapper seemingly only targeted to other rappers. Perhaps they’d be more satisfied if its central theme were the life and times of a bank executive attempting to reconcile his profession with his faith.
But such thinking leads to a Möbius strip of logic that only strengthens the artists’ arguments about the freedom a Christ follower is granted to rap about any topic as long as it doesn’t conflict with Biblical worldviews and ethics.
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