In these reviews, we take a look into so many different styles of music that have mention and praise of God and God’s love and work from different walks of life. What I really love about writing these is that it opens my mind to seeing and hearing God’s love come from so many different people and hearing their artistic testimonies of what our Good Lord has done for them. Music has always played a big part in the human experience and even though Spirituality may not be as prevalent as some themes, if you look for the good, you can almost always find it. This August, we’re going to climb the song that is called “Mount Sinai (Remix)” by Jacin featuring the vocals of Steve Steppa.
When a song gets radio play, it’s usually a pretty big hit. Sometimes this may be the first time we hear of an artist or song but then the lyrics get stuck in our heads because the song gets played so much. When the album for that song comes out for public release everyone used to flood the doors of the local music store for the tape or CD (I’m dating myself with tapes) and everyone was playing the hit songs from the album. I think everyone who has done this has encountered a song on the album that didn’t get much notoriety, but we thought it was just as good; if not better than, the song that was getting all the radio play! These songs are defined in the music community as “Deep Cuts” as a DJ would put it. Merriam and Webster define a ‘deep cut’ as a song that is considerably
less popular and well-known than other songs on the same album or by the same artist. Sometimes you’d have to be following the artist pretty closely to discover these songs, but sometimes, you stumble across a gem, like “Mount Sinai”. Given a quick Google search of this song you’re likely to stumble across another song with the same title by a Hip-hop duo because of how much of a deep cut this song is- it almost leads me to believe this is actually an unreleased song!
The genre of this song is a form of reggae called ‘dub,’ not to be confused with ‘dubstep’ which is a kind of EDM (electronic dance music) but the two have some similarities if you break them down. What makes dub differ from reggae is that dub usually has no lead vocals, it’s only instrumental! Thus, the song we’re reviewing has lyrics and being the ‘remix’ version.
In the Bible we recognize Mount Sinai as being the mountain that Moses climbed while he was leading the Israelites through the desert during their 40 year Exodus of Egypt. Once Moses descended from the mountain his appearance had changed and he had two stone tablets that held The Ten Commandments. This song is the story of how Moses, or as the song references him by his Hebrew name, Moshe, escaped death at the hands of the Egyptians.
In the first verse we hear how God, called Jah, speaks to Moshe, giving him a message to deliver to Pharaoh that he needs to repent for his wrongful imprisonment of the Israelites. However Pharaoh refused which caused Moshe to lead the people to freedom himself. The second verse tells us about how the people escaped when it seemed bleak for them when Moshe lifted his staff as God parted the sea for the Israleites to be able to escape through. Once they were past the walls of water the sea closed up behind them sweeping away Pharoah and his army.
The lyrics of this song display God’s power and magnificence and what God’s love can do for His people. I also enjoy this song because there are a few different instrumental versions of this song, if you can find them! They’re all super groovy and relaxing. I’ve enjoyed listening to all of them back to back for the full experience. I hope that Jacin & Steve Steppa decide to release this song on streaming platforms! Until then, we’ll have to enjoy this track as being one of the summertime deep cuts we hold on to in our music crate. Selah!
References:
Jacin, and Steve Steppa. “On Mount Sinai (Feat. Steve Steppa) (Remix).” YouTube, 17 Aug. 2023, Accessed 30 July 2024.
MasterClass. “Dub Music Guide: 4 Characteristics of Dub Music – 2024.” MasterClass, 11 June 2021, Accessed 30 July 2024.
“Names of God in Judaism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 July 2024, Accessed 30 July 2024.