Trip Lee on Gospel Music's Acceptance of Hip Hop and Hip Hop's Acceptance of Christians
Reach Records rapper Trip Lee appeared on social networking site ThisIs50.com which is owned by 50 Cent and discussed gospel music's acceptance of hip hop and hip hop's acceptance of Christians.
When asked by host Young Jack Thriller if people in the gospel music world bought his albums, Lee explained just where his genre of music fits in the whole of the industry.
"I think sometimes the gospel world assumes hip hop just embraces us, because we like them but they're a little too hip hop, and I think hip hop assumes the gospel world embraces us, but really we're like somewhere weird in the middle," said Lee. "Nobody knows what to do with us."
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Lee also feels his fanbase is based off of people embracing the message in his music.
"Our fanbase, because the music to them is more than just music, because we're trying to talk about life stuff and trying to make them think, it's impacted their lives and so we have a stronger fanbase than most fanbases. Sometimes it's smaller. It's loyal! So that's why when my album drops, even if I don't have as many fans as some of these other artists, [the album] is going to hop to number one because our fans are loyal."
Trip Lee's latest album Rise was released on Oct. 28 and quickly rose to number one on iTunes. His first single off the project, "Shweet," was viewed on YouTube almost 350,000 times. Lee is signed to Reach Records, the same label that is home to other hip hop stars Lecrae, Tedashii and Andy Mineo.
Back in 2012 Lee told his fans that he would be stepping away from music in order to pursue being a pastor. Some fans took this as his early retirement. However, Lee admitted to keeping his original announcement unclear purposely because even he didn't know what his sabbatical would look like.
"Let me continue to try to set the record straight: I never retired," wrote Lee on his blog. "Yes I know that sounds like retirement taking an early retirement But I purposely didn't use that word. I kept it intentionally vague because I wasn't 100 percent sure what it would look like."
ThisIs50 host Young Jack Thriller asked Lee why he decided to pursue the position of pastor and he answered by sharing his testimony of when he decided to take God seriously.
"I got serious about God when I was a teenager," said Lee. "Before that I had gone to church with my family, I didn't really care about it. When I was a teenager everything really clicked for me and I really understood what it was about. That is wasn't just me trying to be the best person I could."
Lee said after that point his life changed and his mission was to help people see what he was seeing when it came to God and his experience. His music is one of his main tools for fulfilling that desire.
He also took two years off from music in 2012 and started to serve as pastor at a church in Washington, D.C., wrote a book and focused on leading ministry. Since making that decision, Lee admitted to missing music which eventually led to his return with his latest album.
