B. Reith - How the Story Ends

B. Reith How the Story Ends

B. Reith released his new CD last week titled How the Story Ends.B. Reith’s (aka Brian Reith) style is a hip-hop, rap, pop mix. This is his second CD release since his debut album Now Is Not Forever. Although for his first CD he was signed on with Gotee Records this second CD was self-produced. On this album he features other rock solid artists like Lecrae, Lisa Gungor, Pj Morton, and Dave Barnes. Brian is a rock solid dude that is grounded in Christ and you can see this plainly through his music, he is really using his gift to glorify God. This sadly upsets a lot of people, but even though people pressure him to use his talent for other purposes he sticks to what is right. In his blog he wrote, “I have personally experienced this pressure. The people at Virgin Records flipped out over my music way more that 99% of the people I met that work in the Christian music industry. Why? I believe it’s because I have a “mainstream” sound with an embedded Christian message. It doesn’t fit the format.” I love supporting people who stick to what they know is right. I encourage you to download his amazing new CD! Though you probably want to hear a review first huh?

I’ll start with one of his “deeper” songs, Made for More (feat. Lecrae and Lisa Gungor). This song addresses cultural influences and pressures on youth. In the beginning of the song B. Reith is talking (singing? Rapping?) about this girl who is trying to conform to the image that the world tells her to be even though she suffering through it. Throwing up to stay skinny but is also cutting and popping pills (anti-depressants?) to relive her problems. And on top of that her parents pay her no attention because they are too concerned about themselves and their career (and that’s gonna cause more problems because every girl, every child needs that attention from their parents from their family, if they don’t get it they are going to look for it elsewhere. In gangs, boyfriends, girlfriends, wherever which could ultimately end up in more serious problems and consequences. Sorry about the side note, that’s just something I see a lot of sadly.). All her problems stack up and she can’t find any reason to live, but “she knows she was made to live for more than suicide.” Later in the song Lecrae talks about a boy who got beat up by kids at school and his mom so he treats his little brother the same way. Then her drunk boyfriend starts beating up her and the boy ends up in the hospital because he was trying to defend his mom. He can’t trust anyone so he makes sure he hurts them before they can hurt him. And because of all the influences in his life he was going to take out his pain and anger with a gun at school. Again it all goes back to how he “Missed the hugs from his mommy needed love from his daddy.” Love is the strongest thing, and we experience the greatest love when Christ died freely and willingly for us! (again, that was another freebie.)
In the chorus, Lisa Gungor sings how “we were made to be more than this!” God tells us in his word what we were made for, (ultimately to glorify Him) to find out you gotta open it up and dig in. The second part of the chorus goes like, “We were made out of love not hate, oh and we weren’t meant to give up on faith, Something’s gone wrong, we’ve been broken, who can fix us now, fix us now.” Guess what? I have the answer to that question (if it wasn’t already obvious)! Only God can! We were born broken, all of us, not just people like those in this story, everyone. Even those who think they have the perfect lives, yes they are broken too. Why? Because of sin. Sin separated us from the creator, sin broke us. But Jesus Christ came in the likeness of a man but was still fully God and fully man (crazy right? but really cool!), and gave His life freely andwillingly to fix us. All you have to do is allow Him to fix you.

Ok, so let’s look at another one of his amazing songs.  Hmm…they’re all so good, which one should I review? How ‘bout a fun one? 2 Steps Forward is basically about him talking about his career and such. The beat to the song is pretty fun and the chorus is pretty catchy (and funny). It goes like “I take 2 steps forward, 5 steps back, lately I’ve been lazy like the way Mase rapped, or lazy like the way Johnny Cash used to sing, maybe lately that’s the reason cash ain’t been comin’ in.” The first time I heard this it made me laugh so much because I can’t really stand the way Johnny Cash sings (some of his songs are ok, sorry if this offends you. Please don’t stop reading just because I agree with B. Reith). This song showcases B. Reith’s clever rhymes where he can make fun of the culture and make a good song at the same time. One of my favorites is when he makes fun of some of the people who call themselves rappers but they really only sound like “a bunch of hootin’ hollerin’ hooligans, cryin’ like babies, actin’ like they two again.” It’s one of those songs you just need to listen to…actually his whole record is like that…so go download it or something!

Hope you enjoyed this review! Please leave a comment to let me know how I’m doing or what you’d like reviewed.