You can go iTunes or wherever, buy "27 Million" and feel good about yourself for supporting the fight against some seriously sick business.
Matt Redman you may know as an English praise & worship singer-songwriter now living in the U.S., some of whose songs you might have sung in church last Sunday. Many U.S. readers could better know who the group accompanying him on "27 Million" had The (World Wide Message) Tribe, of which LZ7 lead rapper Lindz West was a member for last few years of their existence, had the Tribe had at least as much traction Stateside as they did in their native United Kingdom.
Seemingly disparate as the collaborators may seem, they got together for this song that they debuted at the Passion convention in Georgia earlier this year. The title references an estimate of the number of people, mostly female, subject to human trafficking and sexual slavery throughout the world. Monies from sales of the download-only single, which recently debuted at #12 in the U.K.'s official general market singles sales chart, are going to the A21 Campaign to abolish modern-day slavery. The song and charity align to a current Evangelical cause du jour, but since it's a good one non-believers can get behind without controversy, yay to all involved for the effort. A bigger yay is in order if it allows for the Gospel to be communicated in tandem with the issue the song addresses.
As for the effort itself, West sounds impassioned (heh heh) in his protest against the evil he's decrying here. And Redman's knack for memorable hooks goes unabated from his P & W work. However good-intentioned everyone here is in exposing a grand criminal enterprise and giving hope to those victimized by it-as they're able to hear it-the cumulative effect sounds a mite...a mite...
Furthermore, per the song's video, the appropriateness of West leading a stadium full of Passion attendees in mass jumping seems dubiously appropriate at best. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has a danceable mid-tempo pulse, too, but none of Band Aid's participants urged listeners to shake their groove thangs to keep Ethiopian famine on their minds. West's enthusiasm for the issue at hand is understandable, but still...
You can go iTunes or wherever, buy "27 Million" and feel good about yourself for supporting the fight against some seriously sick business. You can here it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K69NdzPvwj0 before you make that order. You could also applaud Redman's and LZ7's concern while hoping that artistry of urgency commensurate to the trouble inspiring it may get at least as wide a public hearing as this offering.
(including bonus 1/2+ for the cause)Jamie Lee Rake
