KJ-52

Like the society it mirrors, the music industry is hobbling in the wake of technological flux, economic freefall, and massive uncertainty. And like most of us, recording artists are spending less energy in these difficult times dreaming big creative dreams in favor of just hanging on to the bottom line. Yet despite the tornado of unsettled dust swirling around him, hip-hop veteran KJ-52 refused to play it safe, zigged while so many others zagged, and managed to create what’s easily the most mind-bendingly ambitious project of his career, Five-Two Television. There’s certainly nothing remotely like this conceptual magnum opus in our flagging musical marketplace. Eschewing convention and the party-line siren call of “less is more,” KJ-52 instead dives headlong into a new renaissance, boldly tackling sounds and words and ideas that at-once capture the dizzying array of galaxies in our media-drenched universe yet ultimately point to the One who holds time and space—indeed our planet, our very lives—together.