Marcel Friday

ALBUM REVIEW: The Birth Of A Nation: The Inspired By Album

Originally posted on HipHopDX 10/7/2016
Rating: 4/5

The past few months have seen the long-awaited slave period film Birth of a Nationmired in controversy. Nate Parker, the film’s creator, lead actor and co-writer, has had quite the task escaping the cloud cast by his past acquittal of a college year rape accusation and all but saw the buzz of his Sundance Film Festival darling halted. To add valleys to the uphill battle, Parker’s rendition of the story of Nat Turner has also been met with a plethora of mixed reviews. For what the movie may lack, The Birth of a Nation: The Inspired By Album offers up a suitable alternative.

Boasting of a laundry list of Hip Hop’s elite and R&B stars, the original soundtrack seamlessly mixes artists across multiple rap subgenres to create a sonic experimentation of music that spits in the face of sedition. Lecrae and Leon Bridges embody the film’s rebellious persona with their own haunting, organ-backed and percussion laced opus “On My Own.” Lecrae preaches the plight of our ancestors with powerful bars “I’ve been pushing hard/I’ve been praying harder/Only Heaven can help me/They took my Earthly father/Mama they promised me death and walked me into my grave/I’d rather die a free man than live on Earth a slave/I’m fighting for people they put in chains/they stripped our heritage they took our names/Put our women to shame.”