Have you ever rapped while praying? I don’t know many people who have.
I’m a white, Jewish girl and the last CD I bought was the Strokes new album. Just imagine how out of place I was at the Point 5 Covenant concert last Friday night at The Door in Deep Ellum.
Lead singer of the Catholic hip-hop group, Flip Cadero, is an SMU alumnus who is the brains behind the ever popular, “The SMU Song.” Cadero is joined by Kiel Werking, otherwise known as “Moses the Black.”
In my opinion, rap concerts are not entertaining to attend. They’re basically a poetry slam with someone playing a record in the background. And while I agree that poetry is beautiful, I also think that it is more personal and should be interpreted by the reader, not spit out into a microphone, booming into the ears of the audience.
Regardless, a truly great performance can be remembered forever. Last Friday night will not go down in my mental history.
Even before the show began, I knew I was not going to agree with the band’s religious beliefs, but that did not deter me from going to the show with an open mind. For the record, I also don’t agree with Eminem’s lyrics, but I still went to “Anger Management” last summer because I think Eminem is a great musician. His music has great beats and an unmistakable, unparalleled rhythm.
I had to extend the possibility of this same musicality to Point 5 Covenant. I had heard “The SMU Song,” which displayed senses of creativity and humor, so I projected some more of the same for the live show.
While the guys had great energy and seemed to be having a blast while on stage, I was rather underwhelmed with the overall performance.
I could barely make out the lyrics, and the music beats that I could hear were unoriginal, generic at best.
The banality only grew when the guys started “free-styling,” and a guest member of the group began singing the theme song to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
I also felt like the oldest person in the room with most of the audience around the same age as my 14-year-old sister. This feeling was immediately shot down when I saw all of the parents jamming along to the music and putting up their pony ears when Cadero belted out “The SMU Song.”
But, I understood why its fan base was high school freshmen. Point 5 Covenant brought me back to the early 1990s when I was discovering music and thought that M.C. Hammer was a super-cool rapper.
Maybe I need to be Catholic to enjoy its musical prayers. But, for now I’ll just keep my copy of The Beastie Boys’ “Licensed to Ill” CD on repeat, next to my menorah.
Tiffany Glick is a sophomore journalism major. She can be reached at [email protected]
