I Broke My Ten-Year Rap Hiatus Last Week

This is the evidence. I hadn’t rapped an actual song as an actual performance (to slander the term) in a good long while. Spencer Harmon and I (aka “Pale Reflection” as a group) did this song. It’s called “Boyce Anthem.” My Boyce College colleague Denny Burk put it on YouTube (recorded by student Matthew Carswell).

Depending on your perspective, it may help your interest in Boyce College that a professor will rap live at halftime of a basketball game. It might also steer you in another direction. You decide. For my part, here I stand, rapping. I can do no other.

Lyrics

Verse 1, Spencer Harmon

What shall these students ride on / 
Or these silly rappers write on
Save to rage against the python /
Promote the treasure you buy on / 
Forget the trends, silly sions / 
Our fashion, yo, check that Zion / 
We’re not flimsy like the nylon / 
But standing firm with the Lion / 

They say we’re misfits, rejects, and on the lamest train / 
Old school / “you’re building arks when there’s no rain!” / 
They give worldly wisdom. and they’re calling your name / 
But our faces are like flint for God’s great name / 

In the classroom, at work, pushing through the pain
swearing to your own hurt in the hurricane / 
Because soul’s are at stake, no time to be haughty / 
Boyce College on the grind call it that Vint Coffee

So if it’s Greek – parse on / 
With no sleep – press on / 
You will reap – sow along / 
We are sheep – sing your song / 

We shall join the timeless song / 
From Joslin, Burk, to DeKlavon / 
Workin’ hard until we are gone / 
This anthem grows so we go on /

Verse 2, Owen Strachan

I’m a strange man in a strange land and estranged, man
And they came and called me Rain Man
We’re all fools, it’s like we rain dance
But we got a game plan and it’s called a gain plan
All that I have counts as loss but the cross
And you put it on my back and you got a changed man
It’s Boyce College, we got that brain scan
Love the Lord with your mind, your knowledge is defined
This college is a sign of a kingdom in this time
And I got the right to rhyme and you’ve got the right to climb
But you’ve got to sift the call, you’ve got to quit the fall
In the power of the gospel–you’ve got to risk it all
Christ has claimed your life, every inch, every class
He’s coming into view though we’re staring through a glass
He’s coming in the clouds, I can hear the angels chanting
This is not a song, it’s the sound of an anthem