I thoroughly enjoyed this interview with Isaiah’s favorite rapper (Isaiah is my two year old), Marcus Gray (aka FLAME). Particularly insightful was his response to this question: “One person had asked what you would say to someone who said that Christian hip-hop, or Christian rap, is an oxymoron.”
FLAME: First of all, I would understand that school of thought because if you look at secular hip-hop, it’s definitely, I believe, demonically influenced with an anti-Christ message. A lot of times people are anti-Christian even. They promote worldliness, debauchery, so I definitely understand that school of thought. But I would like for them to think through, number one, if Satan has the power to create? Number two, I would just hope that they would see that Satan doesn’t create anything—he’s a creature himself. Yes, he can influence people to start a movement, but I think hip-hop—rap—in and of itself can be redeemed just like anything else. God isn’t a wasteful God. He didn’t create us to say, “Oh, they’re sinners now because of Adam, I’m just going to cast them all to hell and start over.” He’s not a wasteful God; he chose to redeem people from sin.
And I think in that same light, the Lord is allowing people that came from the hip-hop culture, who have been redeemed and changed by Christ and now are seeking to go back into that culture, to minister the gospel to them. So it’s a mission field. It’s what any missionary would do—they would learn the language, they would learn the culture, what things are taboo to say, to do. I think it’s just a platform to do that, and I hope that people would see that and see hip-hop as a people group. It’s a people group that thinks a certain way, they act a certain way, they respond to the ills of society in one way. Every person is a responder and is responding in one way or the other. And there’s a culture of people called “hip-hop” that have responded one particular way, and that’s all I think it is.
I was also really happy to hear that FLAME will be putting out his fifth album around December 28th on his new record label Clear Sight Music. I encourage you to read the entire interview.
I disagree. “Christian rap/hip-hop” is an oxymoron and shouldn’t be practiced. The good book says, “be not conformed to this world” and the rap culture is all about conforming; whether it’s so-called “godly” lyrics or profane.
I’m not a big fan of anonymous comments, and also I assume this is only a drive by comment. But in case it isn’t I’ll offer a quick response. What makes it worldly? Why is the online community not worldly? You seem perfectly fine to gave conformed to the “worldly” Internet, so what is the difference? Is all music worldly or just hip hop?
First of all, thank you sharing this. I came out of hip hop and am doing research on speaking to some kids about music. After researching the origins of hip hop and the 5, not 4 elements of hip hop, thought of by the founding fathers of hip hop I must disagree with this opinion. The fifth element is knowledge of self. Hip hop is a sub genre. To use Flame’s analogy of learning a culture and going back to it by familiar methods how would you minister to someone coming out of a gay culture? The person is redeemable by Christ’s blood on the cross but their former lifestyle is not. Music like sex is good and created by God, how that music is perceived, delivered, composed, originated is the issue. Just my thoughts thus far a I myself am still hashing this out.
Bruh christian rap is the biggest oxymoron of all time.