What if your life were a mixtape?
My music is not an end, it's a means. Every project, every sound, I want it in service of one thing: Truth in Christ. Not quantity, but rightness: every gift meets a need. A mixtape isn't just background noise to move to: it's made to be truly listened to.
A mixtape in 4 parts, 18 tracks. Follow it in order, or browse the tracks that speak to you.
For an immersive read, turn on the ambient sound, produced by Madi'Bà (optional).
You always put a mixtape together with an intention: behind every selection, there's a reason. Mine was received before I chose it: before I loved him, God loved me first. That's the foundation of everything else.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.John 3:16 · WEB
The Gospel is not a religion or a moral code: it's a love story, a relationship. God did more than send a message: he gave everything. It's the first track of the whole mixtape. If my life is a project, love is the thread running through it; I choose my sounds because I was loved first, never to shine.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.1 John 4:10 · WEB
Love doesn't begin with me turning toward God, but with him turning toward me. He laid down the first track, and the costliest one. This love is received freely: you're only answering a track already offered.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God's love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 8:38-39 · WEB
Nothing can tear us away from this love: not our falls, not our fears, not our past. It's a bassline that never drops out under everything else. When you know you're held by a love like that, you stop producing to be approved: you create because you're already loved.
We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.1 John 4:16 · WEB
God is love: it's his very being, more than a feeling he has. Believing is dwelling in that love rather than ticking off ideas. Everything I create flows from that home, like from a safe place.
Every mixtape starts from a source. Before the world existed, there was already a Word. To understand who Christ is, is to go back to the raw material of everything we'll ever mix: the One through whom all was written, who stepped into his own creation. He is the Composer; I select his Truth and pass it on.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made.John 1:1-3 · WEB
Christ is the Word from before the beginning, the One through whom everything exists, not an idea born one day. The Composer himself wrote the original score. Everything that sounds beautiful, everything that sounds true, is sampled in him.
And the Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.John 1:14 · WEB
He didn't stay at a distance, a mere onlooker. The Word became flesh: God took on our rhythm, our dust, our life. 'Full of grace and truth': grace and truth in the same mix, that's what I want to carry.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.Colossians 1:15-17 · WEB
He is not only the opening track: he holds every transition, every track in place. 'In him all things are held together.' Without the Composer, the whole mixtape would fall apart. My life, too, holds together in him.
Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.'Matthew 28:18 · WEB
The Composer is very much alive: all authority belongs to him, in heaven and on earth. That changes the game. I mix in service of a living One who has the final word.
...which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.Ephesians 1:20-21 · WEB
Raised, lifted above all power and every name: that's who Christ is. No headliner, no trend, no buzz comes close. Setting all my sound under that Name is putting it in the right place.
To serve is to play in tune: aiming for the true note, more than the loudest volume or the chase for views. Paul puts it plainly: 'we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth' (2 Corinthians 13:8). That's where I set my projects: in service of Truth.
Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.'John 14:6 · WEB
Truth is a Person to know before being an opinion to defend. Christ doesn't say 'I show' the truth, he says 'I am' the truth. Serving Truth, for me, is serving him: a Person, more than a cause.
If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.John 8:31-32 · WEB
We often think truth limits us. Christ says the opposite: it sets free. Remaining in his word is the freedom to finally create without a mask.
For this reason I have been born, and for this reason I have come into the world, that I should testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.John 18:37 · WEB
Before Pilate, Christ sums up his mission in one sentence: to testify to the truth. In my own way, with my own tools, that's mine too. And a question remains for each of us: are we on the side of truth?
When he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak.John 16:13 · WEB
Like a DJ cueing the next track in the headphones to nail the transition, I hold the true note by leaning on someone stronger than me. The Spirit of truth tunes, adjusts, corrects. Creating something true starts with listening.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.John 4:24 · WEB
In the end, it all comes back to worship. 'In spirit and truth': the real thing, sincere, no façade. What if a whole life, the sound included, became one mixtape dedicated to him?
Loved by God, and having met the Truth, what do we do with all that? Keep it to ourselves? No. A DJ lives to dig out the gems only a true connoisseur knows where to find: the freshest sounds, often the lesser known, quality over quantity. The treasure I've found is the most precious of all, and I want you to discover it: passing it on, out of love for those who listen.
The second is like this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.Mark 12:31 · WEB
Love God and love your neighbor: it all holds together there. My projects, I put them together for the listener, the one who'll press play and discover. Inviting them to discover is already an act of love toward them.
My little children, let's not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth.1 John 3:18 · WEB
Real love shows in actions. A well-chosen sound, a project offered, time spent to get it right: loving 'in deed and truth'. My music wants to be a love that proves itself.
If a man says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn't love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?1 John 4:20 · WEB
You can't separate love for God from love for your neighbor. Saying you love God while despising your brother is lying to yourself. My projects, my choices, everyday life: so many places to love for real.
But I tell you who hear: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.Luke 6:27 · WEB
Love of neighbor doesn't stop at those who love us. Loving even the opponent, blessing, doing good: it's the hardest track to lay down, and that's where truth becomes credible. That's the whole point of what I want to pass on to the one who's listening.
Your life is a mixtape. You can choose the Composer. There's a real discovery to be made here: take the time to listen, and feel free to write to me.