A lot of talented artist who are a part of the Christian Hip Hop movement continue to rise out of the South Florida area (Social Club, Rhema Soul, Rey King, Cheno Lyfe, Serge and more). Recently Miami, Florida-based lyricist Oscar Urbina of the CTF collective (Authentik & Mashell Leroy) revealed that his forthcoming mixtape will be titled Finally. The emcee got to sit down with JamTheHype for an interview to break down a lot of his musical history, inspirations and thought process behind his upcoming collection of records.
Urbina’s upcoming mixtape will deal with a lot of different topics that hit home for the emcee. Part of his Finally project has to do with how certain goals can be delayed past the time we assume they should happen. Oscar’s Finally is his debut mixtape. Though he has opened up for some of Christian Hip Hop’s best (Lecrae, Sho Baraka, Authentik, Rhema Soul, Social Club, Bless’ED and more), featured on Authentik’s Groans Before Glory (Sho Baraka, Benjah, Json and more), the Sin Issues-crafter has gone through several seasons that have put his musical aspirations on the backburner.
“I want people to get into my story so they can be like I can relate to this dude. I remember one of my teachers told me ‘When you preach on the Old Testament, nobody cares about all the Jebusites, the Hittites and Amorites and all these other ites,” said Oscar Urbina in an exclusive interview with JamTheHype. “You have preachers who spend almost 30 minutes on the Amorites. Most don’t care about that. People are dying out there. People want to hear something that touches them. There’s not one person who says ‘I’ve never been through a trial in my life and I’m perfect.’ I approached this mixtape with the desire to relate to people and encourage them.”
Oscar talked to us about the concept behind his song “Thorns and Thistles,” one of the tracks on Finally.
“On “Thorns and Thistles” I’m talking about how we sometimes have to go through a lot of situations and sometimes you work really hard but you’re still not where you want to be. God told Adam that one of the consequences to his fall was that the garden will bear thorns and thistles and you will work from the sweat of your brow. Instead of gardening normally, he has to go through thorns and thistles, which if you know about them, they can be an obstacle for gardeners,” said Urbina while breaking down “Thorns and Thistles”. “A lot of the times you have to first go through the thorns and thistles, and when you finally get the fruit it’s dead anyways. I’m saying that’s life in the sense that you work so hard but after like two years you barely reach that place you want to. You’re like these thorns and thistles are killing me. For example, I have been putting in so much work into music for years and I remember one time I did a CD and all the music got stolen. One time I did another CD and the studio shut down. I was like I’m putting so much work but I don’t see anything from it. This is something I think we can all relate to.”
“I remember I learned about the life of Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC, you see him all over and you are like ‘this guy is big’. What many don’t know about him is that before he ever got big, he was trying to sell his recipe to everybody. He would drive from state to state in his car, he was like basically homeless.” Oscar continues. “He would park somewhere, sleep in his car, when the day would come he would pitch his recipes to people at different places hoping that someone would buy his recipe. He got rejected like almost a thousand times before he finally got a yes. That’s thorns and thistles you know. I was trying to show how sometimes there are a lot of trials and tribulations a/k/a thrones and thistles you will go through before you get a yes. I didn’t want to call it work because there are a lot of tracks with that title. This track is about hitting the reality that you work a lot and you could see a little out of it but you got to continue. I tried to write it from a different angle.”
As displayed on Oscar’s verses, he is very much into lyricism. The Finally-rapper gives us some background on how his sound has been influenced over the years. He has spent time as a student in Chicago, a teacher in New York and he is based in Miami. The Moody Bible Institute graduate reveals how different regions have impacted his approach to rhyming.
“To be honest with you I was always influenced by those regions (New York & Chicago) before I ever lived in them. I was never considered a southern rapper. When you look at East Coast Hip Hop and Chicago Hip Hop, the Kanyes and Commons of the world it figures that they had an influence musically. I’m not a big fan of Kanye’s image but I’m a fan of his music. For New York, my favorite rapper growing up was Nas. My favorite rapper overall right now is J.Cole. His music definitely has substance. He is not from New York but he lives in New York and is influenced by that sound. Other personal favorites are Nas, Eminem and Tupac. I like their musical styles. My rap approach was always leaning that way so the fact that I got to live in those places kind of sums it up.”
Oscar dropped a Finally record titled Cinderella [PROD. Mpax] on November 29.
Oscar Urbina will reveal the cover, release date and tracklisting for Finally in the near future. Finally will “finally” be out sometime in January.
