WITH THE ONGOING shattering of silence through the #MeToo movement and a record number of women running for office, 2018 feels unstoppable in its forward movement. Infused with bold rhythms, Joy Ike’s latest album, Bigger Than Your Box, could easily serve as the soundtrack of this march.
While described by Ike as a “political album that has nothing to do with politics,” Bigger Than Your Box conjures up images of self-serving leaders, complacent neighbors, and waning nostalgia. “You may want to go back where you’ve come,” Ike sings in “Say Goodbye.” “But there’s nothing for you and it’s not an option.”
With hues of pop, gospel, and folk, the album is intentionally difficult to categorize, with each song unique enough to stand on its own. Together they tell a universal story about the struggle to be in relation with others, oneself, and God during turbulent times. Amid deportations, delayed aid, and restrictions to health care, the lyric “heavy the load but the hands are few” feels all too familiar. Like Ike, I too cry out, “I need assurance that You are here. ... I need endurance for the day.”
While Ike gives us space between notes to grieve, the album’s message is ultimately one of hope. “It’s not what you want, but your hope is coming,” Ike sings on the track “Hold On.” “There’s no waiting on the right time to move,” she adds in “Walk.”
Bringing life to dry bones and justice to a corrupt nation can feel like impossible tasks. Bigger Than Your Box reminds us to put “one foot in front of the other” and fix our hearts on “the ever-present Spirit of God that embraces us in our most helpless state.”
Christina Colón, a former Sojourners associate editor, is a teaching assistant at Boston University.
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