Who Is Like You

Dunsin Oyekan builds "Who Is Like You" around a question the Old Testament asks more than once and never really expects answered — after the Red Sea crossing, Moses's own song asks who among the gods compares to the Lord, majestic in holiness and fearsome in praise. Oyekan strips that question down to its plainest form and repeats it until it stops sounding like a query and starts sounding like worship itself: who is like you, oh Lord. "The weight of who you are, no words can carry" admits the song's own limits before it even tries to answer, which is close to the psalmist's declaration that the Lord is exalted, seated on high, too great for ordinary comparison. The Yoruba line "Oluwa e tobi" — Lord, you are great — arrives almost as relief, a shorter way of saying what the English verses have been circling for several minutes. There's no resolution beyond that repetition; the song trusts that saying the question enough times, without ever supplying a rival answer, is itself the point being made.