Christian hip hop

Thanks, man.

It was the earliest way that I found to process everything because I wasn't a Christian and nobody told me like run to Jesus.

So I just started writing poetry.

And most of my years incarcerated, I wrote poetry.

You know, your eyes are as brown as whatever.

Okay.

So, and at what point in there, are you a Christian when you get married? Yes.

I

Yeah.

There's a guy on the internet, Django Degree, that's very... very good at like contextualizing his thoughts on artists and he brought up a conversation on a post the other day we was talking about how like artists like rap i feel like we see this thing where like oh this artist like aged out and he's not like a part of the culture anymore and i feel like it's not so much that they don't know how to spin bars anymore it's like that like lifestyle isn't your life anymore so now it like doesn't align with you you can't like music when you're like talking about stuff that you're not involved with it's like so hard to like have that musical connection that like goes through the music and like connects with people when you're not connected with it whereas like i think that's why now more than ever with like social media you're seeing like russ is connecting with more because he's not talking about like yeah he's rapping he's not he's not doing christian hip-hop but he's talking about like the life journey he's on and it's not about like gang banging and like all these women and like yeah does he talk about sex of course does he swear yeah but he's talking about like his journey through life and it's not in a way that's like distasteful at the same time 100 100

i mean you see plenty of artists who do it do it that way i mean even j cole you can put in that yeah and that i mean you know and then he he treads a lot of lines but it's like that but and also People think J. Cole is cool and people think that J. Cole has meaningful things to say.

He's a big artist.

Was it difficult to transition when I feel like so many artists talk about this flow state when you're creating music where you're not even like fully conscious when you had this period of time making music and you're kind of, you know, you're just in the zone wrapping bars.

Like, do you ever feel like getting into this new space where you're like, Oh, this, Oh, I got, I might've said this here before, but now I'm not going to that ever like conflict or is that like something that's just like gradually gotten easier? easier over time meaning like like finding how

to like do you are you basically saying that that now that i'm in christian hip-hop that my window of available topics is smaller

a little bit like the more just like the verbiage you use i guess probably the better way no no no no no i'm not by the way i'm not sorry

I made a stepchildren

Why do you feel like the Christian hip-hop community has such a challenge making way in the gospel music field? Or

do you feel like it's still the same way? No, I know exactly what happened.

I know exactly what happened.

No, I get you on that, though.

I mean, you have a community with people and y'all build...

Is it a thing for Christian hip-hop to collaborate with other hip-hop mainstream? Or will y'all do something

with

Um, but I'd say, you know, run DMC, um, I was really into kind of KMD, some weird kind of offshoots of underground music.

I got really into more underground music in the 90s, you know, listening to Dirt and some Christian hip hop artists that were spinoffs of that group.

Yeah.

And so I've always been into...

About the author.

Fred Lynch is a creative communicator, author, and Christian hip hop pioneer.

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That goes hard.

I do hope that that Christian rap lane does really stay- How much input do you think Kirk Franklin actually has? I think he comes up with the whole idea.

He does as m- as much or more...

No, he does more than Khaled.

Yeah, that really sums it up as just angels.

But it steps into the whole... creative process about what we do when we're able to kind of open up the vocabulary and look into ufology and borrow from the terminology because it fits right the terminology that does fit the whole you know i'm saying kundalini awakening the chi energy like all of these words are like interchangeable uh for for these different spiritual encounters and um unexplained phenomena as well so that's what makes the the writing process uh so awesome now that it opens it up that we don't have to say and because we come out of christian rap right we were doing christian rap for so long and i just read a uh this stuff about lecrae you know he's a big christian rapper and people are mad that in his new album he doesn't i don't even know if he says the word jesus maybe one or two times or whatever.

And they're mad that Eminem is saying the word, saying Jesus more than him in his new music, right? And it's just like they wanted it.

It's got to be in a box.

So I'm excited for this man.

My brother is a Christian.

First of all, he's a son of God.

Loves Jesus for real, for real.

About a

week ago.

Man, he's a Christian rapper, man, and just loves to talk about Jesus and use his gifts to glorify God.

And he loves him again.

So all right, so let's jump into it.

Are y'all the first Christian battle rappers, a- period, or just the first Christian battle rap group?

So-

Is there, was there a predecessor to, to that?

He was ...

So he was the first? Or Tunnel Rats, you said Tunnel Rats-

No, so what I'm trying to say is, like, like, technically at the time, people that were Christian battle rappers at the time were just in battle rap keeping it clean as Christians.

Yeah.