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{"id":868,"date":"2014-02-23T05:33:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-23T05:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/02\/this-is-what-happens-when-hip-hop-lets-the-saints-in.html"},"modified":"2014-02-23T05:33:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-23T05:33:00","slug":"this-is-what-happens-when-hip-hop-lets-the-saints-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/02\/this-is-what-happens-when-hip-hop-lets-the-saints-in.html","title":{"rendered":"This Is What Happens When Hip-Hop Lets The Saints In"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cBilly Graham, we need you around another 95 years,\u201d Palin said. \u201cWe need Billy Graham\u2019s message to be heard, I think, today more than ever.\u201dAt one of the head tables, right next to Kathie Lee Gifford, sat a 34-year-old rapper who looked out of place among the mostly older, white VIPs. Lecrae Moore had not been raised a Christian, and had not grown up listening to Graham preach. His childhood role models had been rappers like Tupac, and he had spent his teenage years running the streets.
\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
But Lecrae \u2014 who was featured in Graham\u2019s recent \u201cfinal sermon\u201d video<\/a> \u2014 has also become an ambassador for Christendom. His delivery is just a bit different.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the last several years, Lecrae has become a successful rap artist with a rare message that is explicitly Christian. His 2008 album \u201cRebel\u201d became the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel chart, and his 2012 record \u201cGravity\u201d won a Grammy for best Gospel album. He has also become a staple of the Christian music festival circuit, headlining concerts in front of thousands of fans.<\/p>\n

But over the past two years, Lecrae has been trying to break out of what he calls the \u201cChristian ghetto,\u201d to some success. He was part of last year\u2019s Rock the Bells<\/a> tour with Wu-Tang Clan, Common, Black Hippy and J Cole; has become a regular guest on BET\u2019s \u201c106 & Park\u201d and has recorded songs with artists such as Pete Rock, Big Krit and Chaka Khan. One BET executive compared his first listen to Lecrae to the first time he heard Kanye West.<\/p>\n

Lecrae\u2019s attempt to infiltrate popular culture while retaining a clearly Christian message is a difficult task, but he embodies a larger trend inside Western Christianity. Lecrae is one of many modern evangelicals who have rejected the path set by the combative \u201cMoral Majority\u201d culture warriors of the 1980s, and instead embraced an assimilation into the mainstream and its formative institutions, hoping to shape it from within.<\/p>\n

Lecrae doesn\u2019t want to forsake his beliefs. He wants to take his message with him. But some of Lecrae\u2019s fans have already accused him of selling out, because he appears on stage with other rappers who are non-Christians, or records songs with them. As Lecrae said last summer, a few hours before he took the stage at the Creation Festival, one of the biggest and oldest stops on the Christian music festival circuit, \u201cIt\u2019s such an uphill battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"