When you're part of hip-hop culture but you're a Christian, people want you to be either-or. Or they'll create a category for you, like, 'Oh, gospel rap!'
When people ask me what I call myself, I am not going to say 'Christian rapper,' because what they think of when they hear Christian rap is something very different from what I do.
I thought that God and rap would never work. I thought that God wasn't okay with rap. People knew I used to rap, and I went to the Bible studies. Someone said, 'Hey, you should rap about Jesus.'
The industry is starting to be more open to what we do. I just don't want us to be boxed in whatever people assume Christian rap should be. We're dudes who love hip hop, and we love Jesus, and that's going to be apparent in our music.
When I think about Christian hip hop I think of an individual who is a Christian who is using hip hop to communicate things that God will endorse.
It does feel like sometimes that I'm the outcast. Hip-hop doesn't want to mess with me because I'm Christian and Christian music doesn't want to mess with me because I'm hip-hop.
If kids say I'm just a gospel rapper, I won't be able to get in their cars.
The Cross Movement was a group that was a huge encouragement to me. The music was good. The content was good. It really spoke to my soul. It was good to have them around as someone I could learn from and really pattern myself after.
It would be really dangerous for us to assume that Christian hip-hop's popularity equals racial unity.
I don't like calling it Christian rap. Titles are so limiting. It's hip-hop. I'm a rapper.
If you just want a comfortable life, the awards, and pats on the back then you play Christian Hip Hop safe. Because playing it safe will give you consistency, but if you're really in this to see peoples lives transform then you're gonna have to do some risk assessment - it is costly to rally try to impact people.
Christian music was music that I grew up listening to that I can't say has had much of an impact on anything I have done in my adult life. Maybe Christianity has, but certainly not the bullshit Christian music I was listening to when I was 12. To me there's not much substance in that music. I don't have a message or anything.
I hope people listen to the music. Don't write it off because there is a Christian doing it and it's been labeled that way, because if I'm honest with you, Christian rap for the most part has been corny.
For some reason, we have completely separated Christians who are rappers, and we have separated, I guess, regular rappers. I feel that we should be able to mingle, enjoy each other's company, and trade ideas.
If someone announces me as a 'Christian rapper,' there's still an 'Eh, no thanks.' But perceptions are starting to change.
I love gospel, Christian R&B, and rap.
