Who’s Sigh– Shy– Whatever. Who is This Guy?

Shai Linne is a Christian rapper. He calls his music (and coined the term) “lyrical theology,” and for good reason. He holds to very conservative theology, he is Reformed (and therefore obviously a Calvinist), he engulfs his songs with quotes from scripture, he practices extremely conservative methods in his music ministry, and yes, he does have D.A. Carson, John Piper, and Sinclair Ferguson sermon snippets in three of his songs in this album (see here). Musically, in my opinion, he’s not as up to par with guys like Lecrae. But in my opinion, when it comes to lyrics he’s got basically every other Christian rapper at this point in time beat. And that’s why I like this album so much–even a white boy like me, who didn’t grow up in an urban context, and who doesn’t even prefer hip hop.

What’s the Album All About?

The Attributes of God is basically a proper theology lesson in hip hop form. As Lampmode Recordings says, “this is a concept album with the entire emphasis on the nature and character of God.” The album’s slogan is…

Shai Linne states, most Christian music being written today is consumed with man and man’s response to God rather than God Himself. With Biblically wise words Linne states, “There’s a place for music that deals with our response to God, but when that is the overwhelming majority of the music, we slowly begin to distort the truth about who the God is that we’re supposedly responding to.” The Bible is God-centered, not man-centered, and so Shai’s conviction is that “a radically God-centered worldview should be reflected in the songs we write.” If the focus of our songs simply become our enjoyment of various aspects of God, namely how He does nice things for us, to the exclusion of a wholistic worship of God, “we create an incomplete and deficient view of God, which is not in line with His self-revelation.” (Read more on why he wrote this album here.)

Promo Video: Perfections of Beauty

Album Lyrics

Check It Out!

You can sample or buy Attributes of God on Amazon ($9) and iTunes ($10), or see Lampmode Recordings to buy a CD of the album + digital version ($12.50), the “Bachelor’s degree” version (the CD + +digital version + instrumentals & acapellas for $17.50), the “MDiv.” version (the CD + digital version + A.W. Pink’s book, The Attributes of God + digital $20), and “the PhD.” version (the CD + digital version + A.W. Pink’s book, The Attributes of God + instrumentals & acapellas for $25).

“Like” Shai Linne on Facebook.

Follow him on Twitter.

And check out his rather abandoned and rarely used blog – Lyrical Theology.

P.S.

A while ago I ran across this video of the “Way of the Masters” guys talking about Shai Linne. This video was made before The Attributes of God came out but it’s still pretty entertaining.