DC Talk - "Nu Thang"

DC Talk - Nu Thang
1990, Forefront

1. When DC Talks
2. He Works
3. I Luv Rap Music
4. No More
5. Nu Thang
6. Things of this World
7. Walls
8. Talk It Out
9. Take It To the Lord
10. Children Can Live (Without It)
11. Can I Get a Witness?

My two-year old daughter's new favorite show is The Fresh Beat Band. It's about four twenty (and thirty) something teenagers at a music school. Many madcap zany adventures ensue. Each "teen" has their own "instrument." You'll notice I've put "instruments" in quotes. That's because the lone white guy, Twist, is the rapper for the group and he "plays" the turntables. When the heck did turntables become an instrument?! He doesn't even have records on them! He just sort of turns them and they make a scratching sound! ARGH! The show is much better than Barney, however.

Now where was I? Oh yeah - white men rapping. Every time we watch this show and Twist raps I get a hankerin' to hear some of this old DC Talk stuff. You know, the stuff where TobyMac rapped on every verse. He also made sure to inject a lot of "Yee-ah boyee's" in there as well. I first bought this on tape along with Sacred Warrior's Rebellion and DC Talk got more walkman time. They were also a youth group favorite. By this album TobyMac sounded much better as an MC and the songs are still pretty catchy and fun to listen to. Not quite as good as they were when I was in youth group - but what ever is? The sound is strictly early 90's hip-hop with lots of keyboard generated bass lines. If you've ever seen the finale of Sister Act 2 then you've got a good idea of what you'd be getting here (especially in the album closer, "Can I Get a Witness?").

The group had yet to take off but you could tell from this album that they were just getting started and had great things ahead of them. They also put out a video of this album but I can't remember what it's called. It had several music videos on it including "I Luv Rap Music" and "Heavenbound."

Useless Fact: Here's another entry in "Horrifying Visual Images:" Some friends and I performed "Walls" for a Sunday Evening service. We did this of our own free will and without any trace of irony. I did not wear my Hammer pants for this one. Oh, the days of innocent youth...

One last thing - does anyone know if they still do accompniment tracks? I remember my whole youth group was excited when Forefront started making them for DC Talk and ETW songs. Is that still going on? It's been so long since I've been in the "scene" that I don't know anymore.