Description
Nu Thang is the sophomore album by the American pop/rock/urban trio dc Talk was released on ForeFront Records in September 1990. The album was produced by Mark Heimermann and band member Toby McKeehan. The album was certified Gold (500,000 copies sold) by the RIAA in June 1994.
Since the release of the first album last year, Toby McKeehan and his DC TALK posse have been a publicity magnet for Christian and secular media to accept the legitimacy of sanctified rap. Expectations have heightened in accordance with the number of godly M.C.’s vying for hip-hop fans’ culture-investing duckets. Is DC TALK up for challenge?
For a majority of the album, the answer is yes. McKeehan has secured co-producer status alongside Mark Heimermann, likely the lynchpin for allowing Toby and singers Michael Tait and Kevin Smith forays through musical avenues heretofore uncharted by their brotherly kin-in-rhyme.
For example, the first go-go based rhyme in Christendom comes in the prayer advocacy of «Take It to the Lord» with a grinding polyrhythm that would do Chuck Brown or Trouble Funk just fine, with poetry none-too-trite. However, the trio’s step into dancehall style reggae, «I Luv Rap Music», though a swell defense of its art to those who would dis it, is a wee too fleshed out for a style so generally minimal and a tad misinformed (lest McKeehan counts ’70s ranters like the Last Poets, rap didn’t start out very politically).
Most of the album, though, is divided between swingbeat and metal crossover. Best among the former is the scintillating «He Works», and on a mellower tip, the title track (but why is “thang” pronounced “Thing”?). «Talk It Out» comes closer to the smarm of whitebread funksters like Dino, but the family communication sentiment is appreciated.
The metal may be there for more chances at rock radio airplay. Though it might not reach the musical heights/depths of the Beastie Boys’ or Tone Loc’s best/worst, «No More» and «Walls» will have some leather-wristed fists clenched high.
But, where «Gah Ta Be (Saved)» was DC T.’s first try at black gospel fusion, they kick the dopicity higher now in the concluding «Can I Get a Witness», a shoe-in for urban and trad gospel DJ’s to get hyped. More haunting than halleluia-happy are the early ’70s Temptations crush of «Things of the World» and the downtempo anti-abortion kick of «Children Can Live (Without It)», affecting the foreboding swirl of some early ’80s underground disco.
If McKeehan is as much a secular rap fan as he was when starting out the Talk, it would be sweet to hear him succeed at an Ice Cube or Public Enemy hardness while maintaining his Christian heart of flesh, but for pop-rap of any market, these are Darn Creative Tunes. [Jamie Lee Rake, CCM, November 1990]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/nu-thang/1443087635)
CD tracklist:
01. When DC Talks – 2:28
02. He Works – 3:59
03. I Luv Rap Music – 3:50
04. No More – 3:37
05. Nu Thang – 4:13
06. Things Of This World – 5:12
07. Walls – 4:11
08. Talk It Out – 3:59
09. Take It To The Lord – 4:20
10. Children Can Live (Without It) – 3:57
11. Can I Get A Witness – 4:25
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by ForeFront Records.
A full-page advertisement for DC Talk’s Nu Thang was featured in the April 1992 issue of CCM Magazine.
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