Hip-hop artist Lecrae is a devout Christian who is proud to be making "soul music," or in the singer's own words - "music that is concerned with the soul" since its lyrics deal with issues such as faith, family, and social justice. Unfortunately, not everybody sees it that way.
People often associate hip-hop with gangsters and violence, as mainstream hip-hop contains a lot of curse words and dark themes.
But Lecrae does away with all that in his music.
"Being faith-driven, being a hip-hop artist, being artistic in an urban context — all of those things make you unique, and you put yourself on the outside of what's considered the norm," Lecrae told NPR in an interview. "A lot of us are trying to manicure our perceived self. When I put it out there and say, 'This is the unmanicured version of it,' I'm subjecting myself to scrutiny."
Lecrae says that he does not ask mainstream hip-hop artists why it's okay for them to be singing about violence, misogyny, and drug abuse, so it's "tragic to some degree" that he is being put under scrutiny as a Christian rapper.
"It's interesting, because it's such a phenomenon for a hip-hop artist to fully embrace his Christian roots and his faith. That becomes something that people almost need you to justify. What we're communicating in our music is love and justice and service and community," he explained.
In this life, there are no protagonists and antagonists, according to Lecrae. The real antagonist, he said, is the brokenness of humanity.
"We're not good guys. None of us are the good guys, right?" he stressed. "So if we can't come together and have conversations and understand our biases and understand that none of us are really the good guys here, then we're just going to pick a bad guy. And that's where a lot of the problems come."
