Pure Order Talk New Single and Video ‘Sons of Belial’
When it comes to the art of lyricism unadulterated by the mainstream or what is considered normal to anyone else, the Pure Order duo from Oxnard, California, is at the pinnacle of strikingly unique hip-hop music. Always keeping their eyes and ears open toward what’s going on in the world around them, God’s Gift and Nemesis take advantage of their combined musical talents to connect with their fellow human brothers and sisters and address what they see in the current social landscape. However, they are not political about it; they simply aim to incorporate love and innovation into all their projects to keep the culture moving forward. Giving a voice to the voiceless with their music video debut for the latest single, “Sons of Belial,” Pure Order flexes their rooted background as poets and MCs while teaching audiences a lesson through their sharp, salient words and danceable beats.
The walking dead are among us, and you might be part of them. The whole point of “Sons of Belial” is to wake people up, opening their eyes to make them see and think more clearly for themselves rather than blindly accepting what is fed to us by the media and our ever-influential digital technology available at our fingertips. The backing instrumental of the song, produced by fellow Oxnard creative Oh No, has a complexity beyond what is in a usual trap track. When Nemesis’s voice enters, her word placement within the instrumental mysteriously flows on and around the dominating hits in an intriguing, ear-pleasing way. She also introduces an eerie, haunting melodic element within that first round of the chorus that repeats throughout. In every verse, Nemesis and God’s Gift each spit fire bars, calling things as they are and digging deep into what is under the surface level. Ultimately, “Sons of Belial” is the first step in Pure Order’s agenda to restore human interaction and original and individual thought through their music.
The theme of not wanting to follow along with the crowd is best indicated through the related imagery of society’s hypnotized inhabitants. Additionally, an array of visual clips highlight real issues about greed and gun violence still rampant in the world at large. Behind Pure Order’s performance, the keywords overarching their song’s message are truth and choice. The main takeaway is no matter who you are, once you know the truth of the matter, you can make a choice about it, which is pure empowerment. Pure Order encourages everyone to use the truth to make a choice because that is your power move to bring the human experience back.
We got the duo to weigh in on a few things!
Pure Order
How did you two arrive at the name Pure Order? What does it mean, and how does it connect to you and your music?
God’s Gift founded Pure Order before he met Nemesis. He sought to team up with lyricists that cared about the pure essence of hip hop without the impurities of self-hatred, misogyny or glorification of uncontrolled violence or any form of abuse. He wanted to uplift people and found a lyrical partner who felt the same way in Nemesis. In 1998 we assumed the name Pure Order although not yet recording any music under that name we still enjoyed a few jam sessions. After pursuing education and stabilizing our lives, we decided to start recording together in 2013 on Gift’s project with producer DJ Shag called The Valkyrie. Our first song together is The Lighthouse on the album The Valkyrie, released in 2014.
Pure Order means we unapologetically stand purely on proven truths & universal facts that are found in nature, science and ancient books of wisdom including the Bible. All facts of life point to there being a harmonious order that when allowed to flow without corruption or deviation will perpetuate homeostatic conditions which facilitate eternal life, which is the meaning of our use of the lemniscate (infinity sign) for our logo. But Pure Order also means that we love the pure essence of hip hop and its order or principles: creativity meant for the fun, upliftment, love, and empowerment of people worldwide; pure and unadulterated by commercialism which stifles, limits, hinders the principles of true hip hop.
What is Pure Order’s creative process? How did it play out when bringing “Sons of Belial” to fruition?
We both bring topics we’re inspired by to the table, have discussions on it, build concepts around the discussion and then write our individual verses. After Nemesis creates the lyrical arrangement, we look for spaces for creative additives like hooks, breaks, adlibs, and statements for intro or outro and record them for our mix master DJ Romes to engineer.
We had just received a batch of beats from our producer Oh No the Disrupt soon after deciding to make our first album together in 2015. We were excited by what we heard and wanted our first song together officially as Pure Order to be an attention-getter. We knew we were somewhat unknown and different from most rappers in the scene and so needed to make a loud and proud statement that was able to compete with the prevailing cockiness among rappers although not sharing in their brand of hip hop.
What inspired “Sons of Belial” in the first place?
Saddened by the pain caused by guns in the hands of people who are public about their hate of others, we felt we needed to speak up and be a voice for the voiceless. Without fomenting hate we wanted to lay out the facts about the root causes of hateful violence worldwide and combat that hate with truth, and victims’ fear with empowerment.
Talk about the deep and socially educational message that has been instilled into the single.
The message is: Put down guns and pick up the power of your mind to think for yourself and make choices congruent to universal truths that perpetuate eternal well-being. Sons of Belial applies this principle to the chaos created by terrorist gun violence as a way of exposing the ignorance and horrible consequences due their actions while contrasting their mindless misery with the well-informed and entertaining rebuttal we hope Sons provides.
In the video we are depicting people in darkness controlled like zombies by the media, world conflicts, child soldiers, greedy corporations and oppression. We then transition into seeing Nemesis as a scientist representing the pursuit of truth through knowledge. Finally we display the words “Truth” and “Choice” to amplify the fact that once you know the truth you can make an informed choice which could save many lives.
How was it collaborating with Oh No on the backing track for “Sons of Belial”?
Oh No gives us the initial tract which is always dope! Then Nemesis vibes to it and builds our arrangements in harmony with the track’s movement. We record our verses, breaks, hooks, adlibs, and send them back to Oh No and DJ Romes who are a dynamic duo when it comes to mixing and mastering our projects.
How did his production work enhance what you both imagined for the song, taking it to the next level?
He gives us music that competes and excels beyond what’s popular now which helps us execute our vision of making hip hop music that is enlightening yet strongly attractive, captivating the head nod factor, and danceable. The heavy pleasing bass thumps with a sinister melody drawing you into a phantom of the opera like scene which set the tone that inspired our choice to use this composition to challenge a sinister reality about human society today.
What was your experience filming the visual? How do the visual clips help to further elaborate what your bars deliver on their own?
Great experience working with Jayson Vaughn. He picked up on our message involving enlightenment and listened to our ideas. Building the production sets around the song was amazing! The clips show unrest, oppression, child soldiers, women being sold like cattle and greedy corporations. These are the things that the world beats us over the head with daily. Our video depict us standing in front of the chaos with truth, love and peace as our weapons.
What valuable and important information are we missing out on regarding Pure Order and this brand new music video for “Sons of Belial”? If we could ask you one other question to dig deeper into your world, what would it be and what would be your answer?
We love creating and building with others. We believe that is a fundamental aspect of hip hop. Hip hop at its core is a uniting positive movement regardless of what the mainstream industry promotes. We are here to remind everyone that skills and positivity are dope and marketable!
How is it that in an industry dominated by commercialized rap we choose to rap about metaphysical, psychological, and spiritual topics and think that would be entertaining to those conditioned by the prevailing negative messages in rap?
We saw firsthand the spiritual damage that commercial rap did to our hip hop family so we had plenty of time to rethink what hip hop should be. We observed how lack of knowledge created mindless behavior, so we researched origins of societal norms and reasoned on solutions based on our findings. We honor our hip hop heritage and use the music we grew up on and loved to fuel our creativity and bring that pure essence into the current climate of hip hop with an approach that we hope is timelessly fresh because it is holds the intent and integrity of the original principles of hip hop we hold so dear and want to share with others to provide a much needed source of uplifting hip hop music to our global community.
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About the Author
Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.
