Music with a mission

To rock, to rap, to rally people for a concert with a cause.

The Rock/Soul/Justice concert at the Crisp Auditorium (yes, auditorium, not museum. It's on the main campus) Wednesday will feature a heavy metal band, a hip-hop act and Aaron Picar — all to benefit the International Justice Mission.

The Justice Mission started in 1997 after founders saw humanitarian groups offer health care, education and food to oppressed populations. The group of lawyers, social workers and investigators decided they wanted to provide legal aid to the downtrodden.

They recently freed 14 people from slavery in an Indian rock quarry. Slavery still exists.

The Justice Mission also helps victims of sexual exploitation and other forms of severe oppression.

The concert thing started when Post Mortum called Aaron P. and asked if he could help them fill a date on their Extreme Tour. So what did Aaron P. do? He told them sure, then found two acts that would otherwise never appear with a heavy metal act: hip-hop and himself (a singer/songwriter type).

As Aaron P. puts it, "Though musically we're all radically different, we all serve the same God. Music and God bring people together like nothing else."

A friend suggested donating the proceeds to the Justice Mission. Gas money is the most the acts will get paid.

On its website, Post Mortum, a band out of Ohio, has pictures of the four guys in a graveyard wearing black shirts and staring off camera at some unseen thing that has apparently pissed them off. As soon as the page loaded, the double bass drumming and screaming sounds came blaring from my computer speakers as the band's song "My Resentment" played for the whole office to hear.

It's the kind of music you expect to hear coming from a basement with black walls and angry moshers. I really don't know how someone masters growling and screaming at the same time, but by golly they've done it.

As menacing and gothic as this band looks, they state they're here for one purpose: God.

The Church Boys are a Christian hip-hop group with a website that allows you to submit prayer requests. They all have stage names like Big Nappsta, T-Smooth and Menace Tree. They all love rap and like "the hip-hop culture" but choose to use their talents to promote spirituality instead of delinquency, like some songs do.

Aaron P. will warm up the crowd, introduce the Church Boys, then Post Mortum will play. The concert is technically free, but donations for International Justice Mission will be happily accepted.