Evolution of Christian rap

 When I first started listening to music my parents always really down talked rap. Growing up my Dad would say “rap is to music as etch a sketch is to art.” So for the majority of my life, I stayed clear of rap because I at the time didn’t like it as well as wanting to please my parents. This was my view on rap until just recently the last few months discovering artists like NF, Tedashii, Lecrae, Andy Mineo, and YB. Since discovering these artists I have started to enjoy rap and decided to look into the history and evolution of the genre. 

For my research on the evolution of Christian rap, I mostly looked at the history of the origins of the genre. Due to being so new into this field I only knew recent artists so the majority of my music was listening to older records to try and get a feeling for the sound, beat and melody. I honestly didn’t know a lot about the history of Christian rap until I started doing research about the early history and listening to some of the songs and I must say a lot has changed. The Christian hip hop scene started in the 1980s with smaller artists producing small records like Jesus Christ (The Gospel beat) by an artist named Mc Sweet. The first whole album was Bible Break by Stephen Wiley and this was the start of a whole new genre of music Christian rap and hit a high for Christian radio in 1986. Listening to Jesus Christ (The Gospel Beat) by Mc Sweet I found some defiant differences this first song started with ninety percent gospel sounding music and then has some rap mixed in. Due to the song being so unknown in comparison to other early Christian rap groups I decided to annalize a more popular band DC talks. For my research I mostly followed the history from Wikipedia and then got the specific dates and history of the bands from other news articles inside the works cited page. These pages are below in work cited page.

In 1987 the rap/rock trio composed of Toby McKeehan, Kevin Smith, Michael Tait started the band DC Talk. One of their most known songs is the song I have analyzed Jesus freak. As I have said the very earliest records produced resembled gospel with rap thrown in the mix almost to just get away from the chorus. Although DC Talk is definitely not gospel in any resemblance one part does ring true for both of the songs. The rap in both early tracks was just an addition rather than the main focus. My theory is that in the Christian community back in those days was rap was viewed as rebellious music and the audience wasn’t ready for pure rap at that point in time. So the artist that did want rap in their music introduced it slowly to warm their audience up to the idea. 

The dynamics Jesus freak by DC Talk is a highly fluctuating song that seeming every change in the dynamics is as sharp as possible an on or off kind of feeling. This is the embodiment of hardcore Christian rock in the mid-nineties. The dynamics of this song I will say are a bit much and in my opinion, subtract from the vocals of the song. 

The Pitch DC Talk uses a much higher range of vocals in this song starting at a low and then raising up to continued highs. This is more common for the rock genre and not as common for the rap industry in present times. For the rap sections of the song they go back down to the mid range to be able to have more breath.

The dynamics The dynamics for Say I won’t by Lecrae ft. Andy Mineo is a slow change through most of the song. The one thing that stands out is that the majority of the dynamic fluctuation in the song is bass which is highly relevant in today’s current rap. The flow with the beat in the music is in a way that really adds to the rap due to the fact that when there is the main point the bass ether drops really low and allows the listener to hear the vocalists in a much clearer way.

The Pitch
Andy Mineo and Lecrae in the song Say I Won’t has very constant pitch throughout most the song. Some people would think this would make the song monotone and fairly dull but this isn’t the case. The fluctuation comes from differing instruments and change in dynamics. The reason there is such consistency in pitch is that large variations would make it more difficult to maintain the lyrics of longer lines.

The difference what has changed?

The songs Jesus freak and Say I won’t were surprisingly different to me the main differences that I saw were time raping and dynamics. As stated earlier on the thing that was really prevalent was the amount of time the singers rapped in the songs such as in Jesus freak the amount of rap in the actual song is probably only thirty percent. In contrast, Say I won’t the rap is the main point of the song. The other difference is that the beat and dynamics are completely different in the two. Say I won’t is much closer to the beat of a normal rap song and the dynamics play well with the music and have that rap sound. Jesus Freak, on the other hand, is on a whole other side of the spectrum. The dynamics of Jesus freak are jagged in sound the fluctuations of the electric guitar and beat almost too intense that in my opinion subtract from the vocal quality. Overall the major difference that has transpired over the years between the beginning of Christian rap and the present is that now songs are sung with the majority of the song being actual rap rather than just having some thrown in throughout. The other major difference stated earlier is that the beat and bass of new Christian rap songs is very similar to the normal rap industry.

Work cited

Dougherty, Steve. “Rap Finds God.” PEOPLE.com, 24 Jan. 1994, people.com/archive/rap-finds-god-vol-41-no-3/. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_hip_hop Date retrieved 2/25/2020

“McSweet* – (Adam & Eve) The Gospel Beat.” Discogs, 1 Jan. 1989, http://www.discogs.com/MC-Sweet-Adam-Eve-The-Gospel-Beat/release/2104798. https://www.discogs.com/MC-Sweet-Adam-Eve-The-Gospel-Beat/release/2104798 Date retrieved 2/24/2020

“Christian Hip Hop.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_hip_hop. https://people.com/archive/rap-finds-god-vol-41-no-3/ Date retrieved 2/25/2020