Spirituality is slowly finding its way back to the forefront of rap. Credit Kanye and Chance or maybe even guys like Lecrae and Derek Minor for finding ways to put their higher power on display in their music, but don’t characterize any of the aforementioned as boring or preachy even. It’s just another layer to their music and to them as people.
Mike Floss works under the same guise on his newest track “Holy Ghost.” It’s one of the first solo tracks we’ve heard from him since “Kerosene” and Don’t Blame The Youth, a project that earned him top honors in his Nashville hometown. The tone is set as soon as Mike recites the opening lines: “Still chasing Hennessy with holy water, God gone probably punish me with only daughters.” He’s simultaneously a saint and sinner, equally pretty good at both from the sounds of it.
“I admit I made mistakes that I regret
Let’s forget it happened and find out what’s next
Cause you would look for love when I would look for sex
And, Lord, I know my momma ain’t raise me like that
We just lying face to face and sharing lies
We both lost and I don’t even if we’ll survive”
Shmuck The Loyal ‘s reverberating beat goes through several shifts and changes but Floss manages to ride the mechanical bull effortlessly. It’s one of those tracks that could have people dancin’ in the pews on Sunday after spending the night before celebrating to it on the dance floor. “I just got burnt out believing and attempting to do things perfectly,” Floss says via press release. “I want to be the best person I can, I want to have a strong relationship with God, but I’m not going to pretend to be anything I’m not so I can impress church people.”
Floss sounds like a man who’s determining what his relationship is with the world and with his faith. He’s a brother who’s realizing our kids are growing up in a world filled with threats and Trumps, the kind of things are the the very ones that will trip you up as you’re trying to earn your way into heaven. Rev. Floss is making it his duty to provide an example of how to navigate those obstacles, even if his life isn’t perfect. “Growing up that was a much harder obstacle to conquer than it is now,” he says. “I spent a lot of my life in a black church in the South and it’s a whole culture that you have to conform to in order to be perceived as “holy” or “saved’.”
With music always serving as a form of escapism as well as enlightenment, Floss probably says it best. “This music provides some liberation to people that says you can live your life, make your mistakes and be free.”
