Marked out as I’ve been on Liquid Assassin lately sent me down a rabbit hole that lead me to check out the latest offering from Grave Plott’s estranged “better” half, Killa-C. If only out of sheer curiousity. Here he drops the moniker in favor of his God-given, Jesus ordained Christian name: Hank Hill. 

The album certainly is a curiousity in it’s own right. I knew that Mr. Hill had dropped the Juggalo lifestyle in favor of taking the holy road, so what I was expecting was a life-affirming reappraisal of his past laced with a subtle Christian message. Thing is, there’s nothing subtle about it. End to end this is a Christian Rap album. Stranger still, this is probably the first and only example Christian Horrorcore.

Sounds weird, huh? What I mean by this is, all of the stylistic influences that helped Hank develop as his alter ego in the underground are still apparent in parts of this album. The opening track still ties into the parameters of the genre, even if it ends with a redemptive message. Throughout the album are references to sin and abortion, with subtle nods to his own political thoughts on Islamic terrorism. The production is well done for the most part, the beats oddly danceable in places, and Mr. Hill’s rapping is….pretty much the same take-it-or-leave-it flow it’s always been, but I will say that it’s all tied together tightly. At its  heart this is still a Killa-C album, but his soul belongs to Jesus now and if you don’t like it you should go bring fudge home to your mother, hug her and tell her you love her.

The album is chock full of Christian parabels, from Job to Genesis and the prodigal son…oddly Old Testament now that I think about it. The song ‘Proposal’ is a truly cringe-inducing ode to waiting until marriage to fuck, but that’s okay because even in his wicked days Mr. Hill had bars that made me shake my head like the magnets meme on a meth bender. There’s some respectfully Christian shade thrown the way of ICP and The Juggalos, apparently we da debil nao, but that doesn’t surprise me. I just never wanna hear shit about ICP being Christian rap again.

I don’t begrudge anybody for ‘finding faith’, as a matter of fact I encourage spiritual growth for people who seek that sort of thing, no matter how it manifests. His soapboxing does wear thin quickly, though, the audio equivalent of your homie who stopped smoking weed and bitches every time you light up cuz “I know better now. Life’s better sober. Trust me, I been there brah.” Even so, I encourage anybody who listened to his older stuff and doesn’t take this kind of thing too serious to give it a listen, if only for novelty’s sake. It’s truly an oddity amongst oddities in the underground, and I can’t say I wasn’t entertained. Maybe not the way he intended, but still.