We judge people based on their clothes, social class, and, dare I say, ethnicity. Our comedians make light of these stereotypes regularly, and we laugh at their accuracy.
Lecrae
Old habits die hard, and if you're not careful, the person you used to be can overtake the person you're trying to become.
For me, 2016-17 was hell, and there's no way around it for me. I went through pain, depression, fear, doubt, and all of that was a journey that I was able to write through, and then I wrote when I was coming out of that dark place as well.
Your identity is not wrapped up in how right you get it or how perfect you can posture yourself. But, your identity is wrapped up in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can't celebrate gifts without celebrating the giver of all gifts, so I want to celebrate Jesus.
Honestly, the pains of humanity have been draining me.
The pain and the suffering that I went through made me an activist. It made me stronger; it made me more compassionate.
In order to cry out for my black brothers, I had to hate the police.
If you suffocate my blackness, you've got to realize that's supremacy.
As we wrestle with questions of identity, we imitate those actions we think best fill an ambiguity we have within ourselves. And that goes for everyone; no one is free from this condition.
Moving forward, hopefully the platform my career has given me will allow me to continue to be a voice in culture, whether that's doing lectures on campus or writing books or whatever that looks like. I feel like that's really the lane that I uniquely connect with.
Many times, that's how people see Christian art or Christians making art: They see the art as having an agenda.
I don't feel any sense of prioritizing white evangelicalism.
I live in Atlanta because Ludacris lives in Atlanta. And because T.I. lives in Atlanta and because Lil Wayne comes to Atlanta to hang out all the time and because Rick Ross' engineers are in Atlanta.
Faith is not about serving some tyrant in the sky that says, 'You need to get your act together.' Faith is about having a loving father who says, 'Hey, listen... I'm here with you. I'm going to hold your hand. Just rock with me.'
You take the negative, the bitter, the pain, the suffering, the depression, and all of those are ingredients for something far more purposeful than you can imagine.
When you're part of hip-hop culture but you're a Christian, people want you to be either-or. Or they'll create a category for you, like, 'Oh, gospel rap!'
You don't realize you're vying for the approval of everyone so much until being yourself is not approved of.
I'm digesting C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller and so on and so forth, Francis Schaeffer. I'm seeing how they've affected culture and politics and science and so on and so forth, with implicit faith versus explicit faith.
My graduation was an amazing moment for my family, my community. In my early childhood, we lived on a subsidized income, with government assistance - at one point when I was growing up, my mother was making $14,000 a year. Now I had made it out of the hood, so to speak.
I function, I live life as a Christian, and me living life as a Christian doesn't mean I'm a sanitized person. It means that I readily admit I'm a jacked up person, and I need a savior.
I know where my bills get paid from, and that's God!
I've always been the type of person - you know, I kind of am extreme. So you know, I'm not like, 'Oh, let me get one tattoo.' It's, like, my old whole arm has to be covered.
Growing up in inner-city neighborhoods, there's a particular structure, which I'm sure is true of most social contexts. The type of person you are determines the role you play.
It is possible to call God 'Lord,' to feel emotionally connected to faith, to do the altruistic things and still not want God.
Life is a precious gift - a gift we often take for granted until it is threatened.
Nobody would deny that if someone was a billionaire in 1962, his billions are going to affect all of his descendants. The reverse is also true. The lack of education, material, and finances for a slave are going to affect the descendants of that individual as well.
Hang out with me long enough, and I'm bound to let you down.
My mother, my relatives, and closest friends have risked their lives in the area of law enforcement and corrections, so I never have and never will say, 'I hate police.'
Waka is really intelligent. A lot of people don't know that because he just gets people hyped up, but he's a dynamic individual, and once you get to know him, you get to see a lot of that.
I consider what I do soul music. It's music that is concerned with the soul.
I navigate different cultures daily, and I understand how people can make false assumptions because of their lack of interaction with the cultures I find myself in. But if they don't frequent these spaces much, how can they rush to judgment?
My mom had always been big on education. She was the first woman in our family to go to college, and she often reminded me that I needed to go to college if I wanted to really make it in life.
I would say before I dedicated my life to living for God, I was really your average thrill seeker.
When I hung out with my Uncle Chris, things got real. He was fun, talkative, and loud. He was the life of the party and a magnet for mischief. Since he saw the world through a gangsta's lens, he wanted me to become tough and aggressive.
I think complexity is beautiful.
I've done songs with legends like De La Soul with Pete Rock. I've done songs with B.O.B. I've done songs with Big Kit.
I hate systemic oppression in America.
If you subscribe to any moral code that says you should care for humanity, obviously black people will fit into that category.
No matter how bad you mess up, God loves you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
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.
I love Lauryn Hill when she first came out with her solo project because it felt like she just knew what she was doing.
I think of people like Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and Isaac Hayes. They all came out of the South, and they followed a certain tradition and energy. That's no knock to groups like The Temptations or The Supremes, not at all, but they were way more polished in how they did things.
Me and Kendrick Lamar have had conversations for years back and forth, so that's my dude.
Atlanta, to me, has the sauce as far as urban music is concerned.
I'll put it to you like this: You can only go as mainstream as people will let you go.
I'm in a very comfortable place, and some of that comes from the shackles of not having to be what people want you to be.
I knew my ways were unfulfilling. I chased power, pleasure, possessions, something satisfying. I knew I kept getting let down. I knew it was insanity, and I was never going to find fulfillment, but I didn't know what else to look for.
I feel fortunate to have a huge family that is beyond race, creed, culture, and have a Father who shepherds us all. When I think about that, my mind is blown.
I know I'm wonderfully made, and nobody can take that away from me. So regardless of what I show you or expose to you, you don't have any bearing on my worth and what I mean.
