Rok – Born 2 Sing

Rok
Born 2 Sing
Testimony Records (2011)
www.natselmanagement.com/rok

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

With a head full of dreadlocks and Rok as his professional name, you would anticipate that Rokeem Pough is a Christian hip hop artist.

You’d be wrong. He’s a smooth contemporary gospel singer-songwriter and a pretty good one at that.

Originally from the Bronx and now living in Harlem, Rok has packaged his songs and style in a new CD, Born 2 Sing. It is a collection of quiet storm-style inspirational songs and a thematic message that Rok articulates most concretely in “I’ll Follow You:” “In this world there’s no one/Who can love you quite like me.”

“Me” refers not to Rok but to God, and on selections such as the tuneful “God’s Love,” Rok croons that the Supreme Being is the one true north, whether you are a jilted newlywed or the father of a headstrong son. “To Fall in Love” is yet another rumination on the immutability of God’s love for His children.

Rok possesses a gentle, breezy baritone straight from the Peabo Bryson school and a knack for co-writing (with Xavier O’Connor of Testimony Ministries, Inc.) simple, delicate songs that one might say sound similar in texture, but are not so much similar as consistent.

 “I Love You” is a praise song with good structure and melody and a refreshing change from the same ol’, same ol’ P&W melodies in vogue today. The brassy “In You” demonstrates Rok’s Stevie Wonder influence. The singer also credits Commissioned and Fred Hammond, Take 6 and Wintley Phipps among his musical influences, and you can hear them all behind his songs and arrangements.  The only misstep on this otherwise fine collection is that the title track, which opens the CD, feels as if it was left incomplete.

On Born 2 Sing, Rok concludes that if you’re looking for love in all the wrong places, look up.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “I Love You,” “In You.”