I've loved hip-hop all of my life, but there came a time in my life when my entire life had a shift: where, before, I was just kind of going to church every now and then; then, there was an actual change, where I actually understood who Jesus was, actually understood the message of the Gospel, and my entire life changed.
— Trip Lee
I never want to give people something I've already given them; I wanna give them something new, you know? So the people who've been enjoying my music for years, I hope they continue to enjoy.
Let me continue to try to set the record straight: I never retired.
I just never want to do anything that's going to compromise what I do. It would have to be a song where there would be honest discussion about something.
'Rise' has a lot of different meanings. It's a call to action to rise from the dead and actually live.
I've definitely seen huge shifts, but the church is a little afraid of hip-hop, and hip-hop is a little afraid of the church. It's a weird middle area I'm often stuck in.
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.
When people ask me what I call myself, I am not going to say 'Christian rapper,' because what they think of when they hear Christian rap is something very different from what I do.
It was always very clear to me that God was sovereign in salvation.
Black art is not some kind of a magic wand: there still has to be a humble heart attached that's listening to it. And I know it's not a wand because plenty of fans love to turn on us as soon as they realize we are actual black people, with black concerns in our black lives.
The more we make our lives about us, then the more we waste our time. When we get older, we devote our lives to ourselves, and then we wasted it. If we want to devote our lives to something significant, something that matters, then we should devote our lives to the Lord Jesus.
For me, as a believer, I found myself in between two worlds because I live in this world, this fallen world, and I want to glorify God here, and I want to point to Jesus here, I want to work here and live with my wife here, but I also look forward to the recreation of this world when the Lord Jesus comes back and makes all things new.
I'm very good at watching basketball and wearing basketball shoes.
My favorite artist was probably Jay-Z. He's the one who inspired me to start writing music. He's a wordsmith. He's very clever. He uses a lot of similes and metaphors. He's a beast of a rapper.
If you look at pop culture as the main picture you see of black men, all these kind of threatening pictures and - I think those of us who are artists and who are in media have to think carefully about what those pictures are.
If I just point out the fact that black people hurt each other, too, then we can ignore the fact that other people harm black people. I think it's an irresponsible argument.
I wanted to write a book specifically aimed toward young people. I wanted to write a book that anybody can read and enjoy, but I did want to aim it at young people and, even more specifically, urban young people.
I actually fell in love with hip-hop before I fell in love with Jesus. I'm a fan of hip-hop, I love hip-hop. I don't even necessarily want to call myself 'Christian rapper.' You know, I don't want to put myself in that little box.
Sometimes, my weakness is where the strength really is, and it leads me to depend in the areas where I really should.
Every trip I made to Atlanta was crucial because it was so hard to get away from family and church duties.
God created you to honor Him, find joy, and serve others. Don't sleep on that.
There was a time when I was in my sins and I was God's enemy, but now I have been purchased in Christ, and God is for me. He is not going to do anything or command anything that is not ultimately for my good and for His glory.
I think about the very truth that changed my life. I want to put good things in my music.
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.
My journey was a very organic journey.
One of the things that I just kind of became very enthusiastic about, and wanted to learn more about it, is how God saves.
There's a difference between being excited about a trend and being excited about what God is already excited about.
I would like the secular world to know that the Scriptures are about the things that we wrestle with every day. The Scriptures are not ignorant. Life is really hard. We know that things don't always go well and that our hearts don't naturally obey God.
I don't' really have lots of hobbies. I like to read and hang out with my family. I'm a pretty boring person beyond that.
I'm not good at very many things. The stuff I'm good at tends to be the stuff that people know me for.
I was about 14 when I became a Christian. I had been going to youth group, and I'd heard the Gospel preached, and then suddenly it all started to click. God opened my eyes to see Jesus for who He really was. After I trusted Christ, the Lord changed my entire perspective on everything.
Pop culture mirrors culture, and, I think, as a rapper, hip-hop in a lot of ways mirrors the things that are happening in urban neighborhoods.
My wife, she knows me better than anybody else. She knows what I'm struggling with, and she knows where I'm at. And I have friends, pastors, and it's good not to have my only friends be people who think I'm special. It's really good to have people who think I'm just an ordinary guy.
I think if you were to ask me when I was much younger what my definition of the good life was, I think it would have sounded a lot like what most people would say - a life with all the things you want and everything you think you need to make you happy, and these sorts of things.
I would be down to collaborate with certain people if we were able to do it in a way that, you know, what we're saying in the same song wouldn't contradict.
When my body, my energy is low, it's hard for me to be a good husband, hard for me to be a good father... hard for me to be a good artist.
I've done admin work, preaching and teaching, youth ministry, marital counseling, etc.
We're born spiritually dead, and I'm calling for everyone to become spiritually alive. Secondly, don't wait until later to live the way you were created.
The fact that God is for me, that is huge for me when I am thinking about fighting my own sins, because my art tells me that God is against you.
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.
I always assumed I'd marry a black woman.
When I meet pastors, I'm not like, 'Hey, you should go out there and be a rapper.' Because for so many of us, I think it would just pull us away from our congregations too much to be able to serve them like we should.
Some of us care about this - justice and unity - just because it's in style right now.
It would be really dangerous for us to assume that Christian hip-hop's popularity equals racial unity.
Before I walk onto the stage, it's about the centrality of Jesus and just really keeping a focus on Jesus as opposed to ourselves.
I'm kind of a boring person. People think I get to travel the world and I rap or whatever, but I'm pretty boring. My life is pretty crazy enough, and when I'm not on the road or doing something, I'm kind of boring.
The Cross Movement was a group that was a huge encouragement to me. The music was good. The content was good. It really spoke to my soul. It was good to have them around as someone I could learn from and really pattern myself after.
My dad loved music, and he passed that on to me. I fell in love with hip-hop the first time I heard it. I started writing raps at a young age. I wasn't a Christian at that point. I thought I was, but I don't think I was, looking back on it.
As a black man who doesn't know another black man who hasn't had strange run-ins with police officers, it's impossible for us not to think about whether that could have been us - based on our country, based on our culture, based on our past experiences.
I know, when I was growing up, a lot of the views I was listening to, it was a worldview that was not helpful. The world even sold me a false idea of what the good life was, and I wish that people would have helped me to think better about how to interact with that worldview.
