At many different points in the New Testament, a mustard seed is used to illustrate the Kingdom of God: impossibly small beginnings that yield an impossibly grand result. From Matthew: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed [...] although it is the smallest of all seeds, yet it grows into the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” All of which is very nice, but parables don’t keep creditors at bay or take care of utility bills, especially in the middle of brutal St. Paul winters.
The Mustard Seed is Why Khaliq’s exceptional new album, a study in faith and focus that’s dedicated to the rapper’s young daughter. Having established his bona fides on the razor-edged The OtherSide: The Six5 and on the gentler, more contemplative Under the Perspective Tree, Khaliq reconciles those approaches on an album full of acrobatic rapping, rich hooks, and warm textures. He frets about being a new parent and trying to make a creative career work when there real stakes, mouths to feed—these are soulful songs culled from soul-crushing restaurant jobs.
The faith Khaliq struggles to maintain isn’t grand or ontological. He’s determined, in the long term, to become an artist of consequence, but finds himself mired in the daily struggle to avoid coming undone. “Smile” is about putting up enough of a front that your friends don’t worry too much; “Follow the Leaves” is about the state you need to lull yourself into to believe the endless hours at your day job will eventually pay off. In fact, the first line on the record is “I’ve just been doubting myself,” and he doesn’t move from that thought into a pew—he simply goes to the studio.
In obviously related ways, The Mustard Seed is about the economics of creativity. On “Trees,” Khaliq’s girl calls him a “wannabe-ass rapper” and asks him, “Where the fuck all that money at?” to which he replies: “I need space, then I need breaks, and I need silence.” Carving out the time to make his art becomes a constant struggle. The album’s strongest songs, the back-to-back suite of “Anita” and “My Jam,” are, on one level, joyous, but on another, about forcefully shutting out the outside world and avoiding the white noise that keeps us from tapping into that joy. A song called “Collection Day” sounds like a mortal reckoning—which, of course, it is.
The album’s emotional center is “First Love,” where Khaliq details his single mother’s determination in raising him, then gives his newborn daughter the highest compliment he can muster: by drawing parallels to his own mom. That song delays the emotional reward—you can practically see his knuckles turning white as he paces hospital corridors—but on the album’s closing track, “The Mustard Seed That Grew,” that release comes, and the gratitude starts flowing in.
The Mustard Seed recalls contemporary works like Isaiah Rashad’s calm, sprawling The Sun’s Tirade, but might be more accurately compared to Devin the Dude’s 2002 classic Just Tryin’ ta Live. On the latter album, the Houstonian crafted instantly digestible songs that, on closer inspection, creaked under the weight of a creative and professional life marred by money and distraction and self-doubt. Here, Khaliq fills familiar frameworks—“My Jam,” the late-night sex on “Trees”—with the sort of behind-the-curtain worries and interior life that give them depth. A distracted listen would make The Mustard Seed sound effortless, but the payoff comes when you realize that this the result of grit and sweat, not magic or epiphany.
