Social Club Misfits duo says 2020 is showing Christians what they’re made of

Christian hip-hop duo Fern and Marty of Social Club Misfits say their new album, Feared By Hell, is meant to encourage believers in these times when many are turning away from their faith.

Coming off the success of their latest full-length album, MOOD

“It's almost one of those moments where it's like, is your faith real? Is this really what we believe or is this just like a pattern that we're in? It's like, go to church, act a certain way, but does your faith endure during these rough times?” Marty said. “I hope it does, for a lot of us it does, but it's scary.” 

The rapper said that now, “more than ever, people need a message of hope, the message of Jesus.” The message of Jesus is one of endurance and hope in the midst of all that happening in the world, he added.

Feared By Hell has a multi-faceted sound with hip-hop, pop, and Latin influenced songs. The album features collaborations from artists Jeremy Camp, 1k Phew, Riley Clemmons, Ty Brasel, Blanca, and more. The band’s single, “God On My Side,” is an anthem to the message they want all Christians to grab hold of. 

The album's cover shows Marty and Fern dressed in tuxedos and badly wounded but still standing. It's meant to be a reflection of 2020, which has beaten and bruised everyone who kicked off the new year excited for what was to come. Like so many others, Marty said they, too, suffered loss of income, opportunities, and tours.

"No weapon formed against us will prosper (Isaiah 54:17). And so I might be bruised, and a lot of us are, a lot of us lost our jobs, a lot of us lost opportunities, but we still made it out,” Marty said. I believe that all those moments that we might have lost, we're going to get them back. And we just believe that even though it's been tough, the best is yet to come.”

Fern told CP that the album's cover “basically tells everything that we're trying to tell through the music that's inside the album.”

The declaration “feared by Hell” was inspired by a comment shared with the Florida natives while on the road and it stuck with them because of how true it was for them.

"I think there's something very attractive about knowing who you are and knowing whose we are,” Marty said. “We know that we're God's kids, we know that we are bought by the blood, we know that we serve a God for whom this is not all an accident, this is not a mistake, this is intentional.”

“I think that in the life of Fern and me, we pride ourselves in the fact that we know who we are, what we like, what we don't like; we know who we are,” he added.

"In a generation that's so unstable — and we're always worried about what everyone thinks — it's time for believers to know who they are,” Marty stressed. Not in a religious way, the church way. I would say, in the biblical form.”

“I think that the word of God is pretty much the roadmap and the moral compass from where we navigate and make our decisions. Anything in our life goes back to that,” he said. “Right now, it’s such a crazy time in the life of church, where it's like leaders have been falling.

As an example of that, Marty said he's heard of Christian artists who've said, “'I know I've been touring, but I don't really believe this anymore.'”

For Marty and Fern, they've vowed that if their careers ever get to a place that makes them doubt God, they “would leave it.”

Marty also stressed that the duo places their commitment to their faith and families above all else. 

“Our wives are way more important to us than music,” he said.

"Music is great, but that's not the place we look at to navigate; we look for the Kingdom of God, for Jesus. So every decision is made out of that place of more of a biblical standpoint, than rather, 'like, we want to just get on and be celebrities.' That is the furthest thing from what we want to accomplish.” He added. “We would choose impact every single time over popularity.”

Feared By Hellis now available.