Why Sho Baraka is thankful ‘The Narrative’ took so long to make

Sho Baraka’s new critically acclaimed album The Narrative took nearly two years to make, and it’s changed drastically over those two years.

“It’s went through so many different stages,” Sho told Rapzilla.com. “It started off as just songs that my man Jamie [Portier] and I were just doing. Then it went to, ‘Well, alright, let’s release an EP.’ Then it went to, ‘Man, we have a lot of good songs. Let’s make an album.’ Then it went from our project to just my own project. Then I had to take some songs off. Then I added some songs.”

Changes that Sho made to The Narrative over time were only made possible by time, so he’s pleased that he took his time releasing it.

“I think the beautiful thing about this album taking so long is that it’s kinda like a stew that simmers for a long period of time in order to get all these flavors in it, so that when it’s ready to eat, you can taste all of this stuff,” he said. “And for me, I think it was God’s sovereignty in making me process through The And Campaign, through having a second son who’s on the autism spectrum, seeing the riots in Baltimore, this political season that’s popped up — just a load of different things, the Black Lives Matter Movement come to large prominence — because if I would’ve released the album a year ago or a year and a half ago, some of those themes wouldn’t have been as strong and as powerful.

“I’m actually glad that I can be a mouthpiece in this present day, that I was able to go through that and those things helped shape some of the content of my album.”

David Daniels
David Daniels
David Daniels is a columnist at Rapzilla.com and the managing editor of LegacyDisciple.org. He has been published at Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, CCM Magazine, Bleacher Report, The Washington Times and HipHopDX.
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