Album: “Welcome to Diverse City”

Label: Forefront Records

Toby Mac’s Diverse City is his second CD as a solo artist. His first CD, the Grammy-nominated Momentum, came out in 2001 with the song Extreme Days. Toby was part of the acclaimed trio DC Talk. DC Talk has won numerous awards, and has several platinum and gold albums. His solo work has taken him more to his roots as a hip-hop artist and closer to where DC Talk originated.

Diverse City is really a diverse CD. The style of the CD covers a broad range, mostly hip-hop, but also includes funk, punk and rock . It has an awesome beat and a great message. Nearly every song talks about knowing God in some way, mostly in an “I was lost, but now I am found” sort of way. The song “Gone” talks about how his friend was treating his girlfriend, and how he was chewing him out for it. “Stories” talk about the “stories” Toby has had in his walk with Christ.

My favorite songs are “Catchafire (Whoopsi Daisy)”, “Gone”, “Stories (Down to the Bottom)”, “Getaway Car”, and “Burn for You”. I like them because they each have different beats and styles. “Catchafire” has a heavier, hip-hop beat and feel to it, but “Gone” is punk, in a style that is similar to Relient K. The title track, “Diverse City”, is right out of the disco-funk era.

The song that really spoke to me was “Burn for You”. It made me think about how my walk was going. In the song Toby sings about the change in his life after he met Jesus. He says “I’m a brand new man, I’m a conscious man.” and also “I feel revived again… you got me lifted and lifted you lift me up.” As I was singing along with the song, it started to sink in. I would replay the song over and over so maybe I could understand it better. These verses made me think that “this is how I was before I met Jesus too” or “this is how I feel now.”

Another song that made me think was “Getaway Car.” Some of the lyrics say “I need to get away; I need to spend some time with you again.” And “I need a getaway car, I got to get out of here fast and far”. It made me think of some of the surroundings in my life. I have a good family, but do I have good friends? I think this song opened my eyes to what is going on in my life every day. I had never thought about it, I always thought that nothing would ever happen to me. Now I realize that even the smallest things make the biggest difference.

Diverse City has great songs and beats through the whole CD. Fans of current popular styles will love the CD. I would recommend it to anyone. It was very encouraging to my spiritual life.