“And when you stick to that and you know exactly what you’re doing,” says Caliph Now. “Once you get into the zone everything kind of comes naturally.”

“It goes from 0 to 60,” says Reef.

Another stand-out track is “Young Bol.” Here Reef calls to attention what it takes for many young and up-and-coming rappers to make it in the industry, how those sacrifices can put their lives and freedom at risk, and how the machine that is social media is fueling it all.

“I’ve never experienced a time in my life where I saw so many people apart of an art form, in this particular case hip-hop, just dying,” says Reef.

Reef decided to leave the ending to this storybook rap open-ended because he, like many, struggles to find a solution to the problem. Reef does question who’s at fault when it comes to violence often being a driving force in hip-hop stardom.

“Right now, the catalyst of hip-hop media is ‘what beef is happening? What kid pulled a gun on another kid,’ and it has little to do with the music. The message behind ‘Young Bol’ is who’s at fault here? Because we still click, we still watch it, we’re still invested.”

Still, Reef believes that you MCs hold the power when it comes to moving the culture forward.

“The corniest stance you can take is to be the guy complaining about what the kids are doing,” says Reef. “We gotta do better as an older generation and try to be more understanding and supportive of these young guys. We can’t ignore the fact that for hip-hop to grow and to live, it has to change.”

There’s no right or wrong way to make art – and if there were, that ponders the thought: who would be the arbiter of that decision? And it seems the answer to that question would be: it has to come from within. Not age, style, fame, nor fortune can determine an artist’s motivation to create. Reef believes creativity should come from a place of joy.

“If you’ve been doing something for 10, 15, 20 years and you’re not ‘successful,’ sit down and look at all the art you’ve created and given to the world – if it doesn’t bring you joy or happiness and you don’t feel content, then that’s the conversation that you need to have,” says Reef. “But if it still makes you smile when you create something, then just create from that place and remove all the other expectations.”

Reef has given us humility, transparency, pride, and quite simply, an example of what it means to be a whole person. The Triumphant is a supremely transparent album, and is devoid of pretense yet overrun with raw emotion. It’s the human experience in its purest form. Coming up on February 9, Reef The Lost Cauze and Caliph-Now will be delivering that same undiluted intensity to fans at Fishtown’s Johnny Brenda’s with guest performances from Bear-One, I-Know Brasco, and The Out Sect for The Triumphant record release show. Get your tickets now.

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