Album Review – 4Sight – “Follow Me”

Published on December 6, 2011

Released: 2011

Reviewed by: Neil Christian

Rating: 5 (Out of 10)

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In this postmodern society, rampant with people ‘following’ each other via twitter, facebook and other forms of media, it’s a strange thing to hear people remark in a church setting about not following men but only following Christ. Often this statement is spoken with supposed scriptural support, usually quoted from 1 Corinthians 1:12, “What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”” and often used to show the supposed divisions caused. Many people who use that text entirely ignore the fact that Christ is included in the verse as well and they end up doing exactly what the text is urging us to not do! Against such a backdrop, this album is an oasis.

With a underlying message of “The vision for the ministry, follow us as we follow him… a culture of missional disciples!” for Follow Me, this album urges the listener to follow the rapper as he follows Christ. Many who will buck against such an idea should carefully read 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy, where Paul urges the Corinthian church and Timothy to follow his example as he followed Christ. Getting back to the album at hand, the project kicks off with the theme song, Follow Me with rhymes about discipleship, fulfilling the Commission and ultimately urging the Christian to be a true follower of Christ.

4Sight is your average everyday rapper. With basic rhymes and very basic flows, there is nothing special to separate him from the crowd of other rappers.  Cheers finds the rapper sampling Sho Baraka’s Catch Me at the Brook in the chorus and rhyming, “My name is written in the book of life, by the lamb’s hand, raise your cup high and shine your light like a lampstand.” This is standard rapping. It’s not bad rapping but not exceptional either. The flow remains the same on almost every song. I understand sticking to your strengths but switching up flows on many tracks, evoking more emotion from the voice would have done wonders for the project.

On the production tip, there are a lot of 808’s and the album is mainly synth driven. The beats sound dated and muddled. The mixing and mastering of the project could have been better as often the vocals sound faded, sometimes the elements of a track sound too high, too loud and various other things. Of course the dreaded album killer auto-tune monster finds its way on the album on Counterfeits while Hate Sin sees the rapping attempting to sing the chorus, something that should never have been attempted.

In Fact the best song of the album is, ironically, the last song of the project, Why He Loved. With an old skool west coast type beat, 4Sight rhymes for 5 minutes about the Love of Christ, a topic that we will never exhaust. And that is ultimately the reason for this album, Jesus Christ. So as 4Sight urges us to, let us follow the biblical model of discipleship and follow the mature Christians whom God has placed in our life as they aim to Follow Him.

Comprehensive Ratings:

Rating – 5.0

1. Music – 4

2. Flow – 4

3. Creativity / Originality – 5
4. Relevancy – 5
5. Content & Character – 6
6. Credibility & Confidence – 6
7. Personality – 5
8. Presentation Quality – 5
9. Overall Production Quality – 5
10. Potential Impact – 5

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