Rashad Thomas looks God in the eyes with ‘I Was Told There’d Be Gold’

Rashad Thomas began work on his new album, I Was Told There’d Be Gold, more than a decade ago, recalling how it went through “seven or eight different iterations” in that time. 

As a result, the record, out today (Friday, March 6), reflects an extended stretch of the musician’s life journey, setting songs such as “Make Believe” – written before he became a husband and a father and centered on the promise of his then-unknown future – alongside “Still in Love,” which captures the way day-to-day struggles can transform untested early romance, forging it into something more hardened and true. 

“This album deals more with grown love, with seasoned love, and what it’s like to share your life with someone long term,” Thomas said in an early March interview. “I think there’s a Cinderella view of love when you’re younger. And when you get married and have children, you have to face that it really is about loving another human. In so many marriages, people are selfish. … You need to spend more time getting to know that it’s about the other person, and it’s about learning how to care more for the other person. And then it’s also about healing. … I think it’s important that two people heal to love each other better.”

This idea surfaces most cleanly on the song “Courage,” where the narrator expresses a hope that they can stitch themselves up well enough that their children won’t inherit their generational pain. “And I think I’m speaking for everybody when I say something like that,” Thomas said. “I see it in other people. I saw it in [people’s] parents not wanting to be their parents.”

I Was Told There’d Be Gold is also shot through with a devotion informed by Thomas’ open-ended but deeply rooted spirituality, which exist in such a way that he sees the value in working to improve our situation here on Earth regardless of what the afterlife might hold. On the soulful, sun flecked “Return to Brazil,” for one, the musician wonders if heaven has left us to our own devices and questions what’s to be done if God isn’t coming back to save us. Rather than throwing up his hands at this idea, however, Thomas digs in. “We might just have to save ourselves,” he sings.

“I’m a spiritual person, and it’s a question to my brothers and sisters in the world who are religious, asking, what if?” Thomas said. “I think who- or whatever your God is has well-equipped you to save yourself. You have all the tools. You have everything you need.”

In a similar vein, “Return to Brazil” also posits that we don’t need access to heaven in order to observe miracles, which Thomas acknowledged in our interview “are happening all around us as we speak.” And the musician maintains this hopeful view even as he embraces the reality that this can be a cold world (“The Craft”) frequently defined by struggles (“Who”) designed to test our bravery and conviction (“Courage”).

“We’re living in those kinds of times where people are questioning, like, ‘Where’s Superman? Where’s Spider-Man? Where are the heroes at?’” Thomas said. “And then you gotta ask the question, maybe you’re him? Maybe you’re her? Maybe you’re just sitting down when you’re supposed to activate something.”

In some ways, Thomas’ latest also serves as a place of shelter from these encroaching cruelties, the producer crafting an intricately lush, soulful, and inviting world that still leaves ample space for dancing (“The Craft,” an up-tempo, four on the floor house record). “I always try to create my own world, man,” he said, “my own vibration.”

As a teenager, Thomas began as a more traditional R&B singer in the major label system, landing deals with Columbia, RCA, and Universal that all eventually stalled out. In going through that process, though, Thomas emerged with a different idea of success, which is centered entirely on the ability to spend his time in pursuit of his craft. “Success is doing what I love,” he said. “It’s waking up every day and being able to create, and being grateful that I still get these melodies in my head, and that I have ideas and they’re never-ending.”

Before Thomas wrote any of the songs on I Was Told There’d Be Gold, he first had the title, describing it as the seed from which everything else blossomed. Thinking back to that moment, the musician said he was considering the idea of completion or success, but also challenging the “spiritual contract,” as he termed it, and the promise of greater riches beyond those that fall within our earthly grasp. “It’s almost like a declaration,” he said. “It’s holding the universe’s feet to the fire. It’s looking God in the eyes.”