Album Review: Propaganda & ProducerTrentTaylor’s “This Is Our Fellowship”

In a groundbreaking musical collaboration that addresses masculinity, faith, and social justice, veteran rapper Propaganda (Jason Petty) and producer TrentTaylor have released “This Is Our Fellowship,” a twelve-track album that challenges conventional masculine expression through contemplative gospel-infused beats and raw, honest lyricism.

The album represents an unlikely partnership born from a previous collaboration. TrentTaylor, whose path to music production included Air Force service in Afghanistan in 2012 (where he made beats on an MPC4000 between shifts servicing A-10 Warthogs), faced significant personal challenges after a dishonorable discharge for marijuana use left him homeless in Phoenix. His musical journey eventually led to a connection with rapper Fashawn for the album “YOU OWE US WITH INTEREST” through Mid90s Records.

It was during these sessions that TrentTaylor met Jason Petty, known professionally as Propaganda, who had been rapping since joining the Tunnel Rats collective in 2003. Propaganda’s background is equally compelling – the only Black child in a predominantly Mexican Los Angeles neighborhood, he holds degrees in illustration and intercultural studies, co-founded two charter schools, toured with De La Soul, and left teaching in 2007 to write full-time.

What began as a guest-verse acquaintance evolved into “This Is Our Fellowship,” an album that confronts limited emotional expression among men through powerful imagery. The title track employs an extended crayon metaphor, explaining how boys are raised with limited emotional “colors” – “Sad, mad, happy, horny, hungry, you know, primary colors. Nothing analogous or tertiary, no direction.” This restrictive emotional palette, Propaganda argues, has profound consequences, leading some men toward destructive outlets.

“Gas You Up,” featuring Danny A. Thomas, stands as perhaps the album’s most striking departure from hip-hop conventions. The track features Propaganda openly affirming another man’s growth and character across three verses – a rarity in a genre often focused on competition and bravado. He acknowledges a man “waging war with a to-do list, getting angry less, turning a heart of stone into a safe house until his kids are grown.” This vulnerable male-to-male affirmation represents a structural anomaly in hip-hop, described as sounding like “two guys on a porch after everyone else went home.”

The album doesn’t shy away from political commentary. On “Burn It Down,” featuring Fashawn, Propaganda embraces what he calls his “Jesus and the Money Changers era,” addressing systemic injustices from police precincts to the Pentagon, from churches to Gaza. The following track, “Build,” presents a counterpoint, recounting how the 2025 LA wildfires temporarily erased neighborhood divisions as communities united in crisis response. This juxtaposition illustrates Propaganda’s nuanced view that destruction and construction are sequential parts of societal change.

Perhaps most controversial is “I Didn’t Leave You,” where Propaganda directly addresses his complicated relationship with institutional Christianity. He criticizes theological one-upmanship and the church’s reluctance to embrace Black Lives Matter, while explicitly condemning former President Trump’s relationship with evangelical communities: “Trump dated the church/Then reprobated the church/And then Trump ate the church/’Cause Trump hates the church.”

TrentTaylor’s production provides the perfect canvas for these weighty themes. His gospel samples move deliberately, with drums that “pat and shuffle where you’d expect them to knock.” This unhurried pace, initially challenging for listeners, proves essential for a record dense with linguistic complexity. Tracks like “Gas You Up” and “Wish You Well” feature production that sounds authentically aged, “like they were cut from vinyl left in a church basement, dust and all.”

The album concludes with Propaganda naming his “day ones” – childhood friends, family members, and early associates who knew him before fame. This personal roll call reinforces the album’s central theme: authentic masculinity requires acknowledging one’s full emotional spectrum and the relationships that shaped it.

With “This Is Our Fellowship,” Propaganda and TrentTaylor have created a thought-provoking work that challenges listeners to reconsider masculinity, faith, and community in contemporary America.