Rapper Trip Lee has always made it a point to defy and challenge stereotypes, but he admitted that he almost missed the chance to marry his wife because she had a different skin colour.
"I always assumed I'd marry a black woman," he shared in his new book Rise: Get Up and Live In God's Great Glory, which was written to refresh people's perspectives and encourage teens and young adults to rise above the low expectations society has for them.
His wife came as a surprise to him because she was everything he was looking for in a woman.
"And I met my wife, and what happened there was, here's a woman who loved God. What I see in Scripture are the priorities: My wife was beautiful to me, and she loved God, and we got along well. When I look in Scripture for what I want in a wife, here she is, right here," he said.
Lee tackles some issues on racial prejudice in his new book and dispels the notion that rappers are all bad boys. "The gospel is the power of God for salvation for all who believe, not just old, black grandmothers or not just old, white Republican guys," Lee said. "I love being an example, that, hey, I'm young, I'm a rapper, and the gospel is the power of God for salvation even for me."
The book later inspired his latest hip-hop album entitled Rise, and his first single off the album is called "Shweet."
"We can assume, okay, I'm a believer in Jesus, but since I'm in this stage of life, I'm waiting until the next stage of life before I'm really responsible for these types of things," Lee said. "And what I'm trying to say in the book, in large part, is, no. That is not true. That is not the way God thinks of His people. There is no class of people of God not called to glorify Him in every area of their lives."
The singer challenged people to cleanse their hearts of racism and accept people from all walks of life as children of God.
"Politics and laws, at the end of the day, what they can do is they can protect people, but if we are going to see each other as human beings made in the image of God, then what really has to happen is that hearts have to be changed," he said.
