العمودية
We spoke to F.E.R.N. and Marty of hip-hop evangelists and lovers of fun Social Club Misfits
The Miami-based duo Social Club Misfits have recently broken into Christian hip-hop bigtime with their signing to Capitol Christian Music Group. Their EP for that label 'The Misfit Generation' has pulled in enthusiastic reviews and clearly things are looking good for Fernando (F.E.R.N.) and Martin 'Marty' Santiago. When they formed in 2011 they were called Social Club and they kept that name through their string of independent releases, the free album 'Misfits' (2012) followed by 'Misfits'EP' (2013), 'Rejects' EP (2013), 'Summer Of George' (2013), 'Misfits 2' (2014) and 'Us' (2015). We spoke to F.E.R.N. and Marty about their music and ministry.
Radio Hayah: Why the new name?
F.E.R.N. It's not necessarily a new name. There's so many Social Clubs out there. If you search the name Social Club there's so many other bands it was clogging up the search feed. We decided to add the "misfits" to it to separate ourselves from that cluster. Now, Social Club Misfits - you search that, you only find us.
Radio Hayah: "Misfits" is interesting because you're already set apart from other rap artists - not just the mainstream but from gospel rap too.
Marty: A lot of our friends are in the mainstream - which is cool - and they have their views and we have our views. A lot of our friends are in the gospel industry, and they do what they do. Our vision is to reach misfits. Social Club is trying to do that. We love everybody, we get along with everybody - we have a lot of friends - but we do what God's called us to do.
Radio Hayah: What's the song "Wavemasters" about?
Marty: We feel like as misfits it's our job to set the trends, not to follow them. "The wave" is a phrase we've been using for years - it came from New York - it's basically what's happening now. There are always new waves coming; those are trends, so the "wave masters" means we're controlling the waves, we're setting a new trend, a new tone. We want to do that in every genre. A lot of people don't know how to classify us. "Are you Christian rappers? Are you rappers?" We say, "Listen, we do what we're doing, we're having fun, and we're here to reach misfits." Call it what you want: at the end of the day it's good music. We believe that's our job as Christians, misfits - whatever you are - to set the trend, not to follow, not to do what everyone else is doing. The trends where we live are very different - get a girl Friday night and never see her again after the morning. Drink until you pass out. Smoke this, do that. That's not the wave we're on: we're on a different wave. We have a song called "Marriage Goals"; that's totally opposite of whatever the world is saying. They're saying, "Get a girl, get a different girl, get a hotter girl. Make sure your girl's the hottest and does this the best." We're saying, "Listen, find somebody and stay committed. Have children. Build a life together." We have our own ways; instead of telling them what we're against, we're telling them what we're for. We're for family, we're for God, we're for setting a new trend.
Radio Hayah: Presumably you're married men yourselves?
Marty: Yeah. I just got married three weeks ago. Sex with my wife is the best thing ever. I waited so many years to have sex and now we're going at it, we're practising a lot.
F.E.R.N. The marriage bed is undefiled, so we feel real comfortable making those statements.
Radio Hayah: A lot of Christians have problems with sexuality.
F.E.R.N. We like to make music for real life, for things we're really dealing with. I'm a married man myself and I was so happy to have Marty join on the quest of being married. We've always shared a lot of things together - we're on the same wavelength - but now him being married, it's just a different world. I know he's happy to be able to share in that now. Being married has changed a lot of things and put us on a different perspective as far as where we go in the future and how we see things. We want to point to the family unit: we know it's been breaking up. We want to make people know there's love in the family; we want people to get married, we want people to have kids. We have people get engaged at our shows. Five to six people have been married who were engaged at our shows; they've invited us to their weddings, they want us to perform at their celebrations. That's what we're pushing: excellence through marriage, through life - things that should be different from what the world's been saying.
Marty: We're definitely trying to break the stereotypes of, "Hey, sexuality and Christianity is a bad thing." Listen, when you get married, it's the best thing; there's sex involved - it's the real thing. Our dream day would be hanging out with some people, laughing, telling stories: that's the culture we're trying to make. Instead of feeling like that's bad, let's ask why is sexuality bad, why is the world craving all this sex talk? We want our life to be a life for people to say, "Wow! I want to have that. I have to know what real commitment is. I want to know what it feels like to be married to one person and to be committed, to have kids and to build a life together." I've been single for 20 years, I just got married. I was with my girl for a year and a half before we got married; to be honest with you, I know how it feels to be like, "I don't know about commitment." But now that I'm committed, now that I'm sold out - it's almost like being sold out to your relationship with Jesus Christ. If you do it half, like one foot here, one foot there - one foot in Christianity, one foot in the world - you'll never get the full experience. Dive in: that's when everything makes sense, that's when everything starts to get better. It's a journey: life is not a destination, where you hit the point. We want fans to know that - real life! You're going to fail, you're going to do great; you're not going to be perfect, you're going to be a work in progress. That's OK. Let God work on you: you're not finished. Today you might have failed, but that's not the end: keep going. As long as you have air in your lungs, the Bible says there's new mercies every morning.
Radio Hayah: There's a song on 'The Misfit Generation' called "Kumbaya". Is that anything to do with the old song people used to sing around campfires?
Marty: No. This song "Kumbaya" says in the chorus, "They say they're the realest, but we don't believe you." We hear all this music on the radio, and they brag about everything they have - all of the women and jewellery and money - and the truth is we don't believe you. There's a generation that wants real. They don't want fake. I used to get picked on in school because I started going to church. I remember someone telling me, "The only reason they're picking on you is because they want to see if it's real or not. If it's real, it'll last. If it's not, you're going to cave in and say, 'Yeah, yeah, forget this. I'm not going to church.' If you can stand the test, it'll be real.' Our generation wants to test to see what's real, because there's so much fake around. "Kumbaya" is about having a real relationship with God, having a real life. In the first verse, when I'm rapping, I'm talking about the real life - being with my girl, and the ups and down. Real life is not perfect and it's not all terrible, it's in between - valleys and hills.
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