Christian Rap and Embracing Cheesiness and Hope

A New Christian Rap Playlist

A couple years ago I posted about my love for Christian rap music and shared the link to a Spotify playlist I made called "Jesus Rap Starter Pack". That playlist has become the "dumping ground" for any Christian rap song that I like, so it has become quite large and has some older songs on it. Out of a desire to have a Christian rap playlist that is shorter, more curated, and more frequently updated, I've made a new playlist called "Jesus Pieces: Christian Rap" (complete with a nifty AI-generated cover image!).

Reflecting on My Enjoyment of Christian Rap

I'm calling this "reflecting on my enjoyment of Christian rap" because I'm intentionally not trying to persuade you to like Christian rap the way that I do. Maybe rap music just isn't your thing, and, regardless, through previous attempts at getting other people to like the music I like I've learnt that it simply doesn't work. Everyone's personal tastes in music are different. That being said, for reasons I'm about to get into, I think Christian rap is worth giving a second (or first!) chance if you're at all open to the idea.

The State of Contemporary Music

At the risk of sounding simultaneously like a grumpy old person and a prudish Christian, I'm going to make a critical observation about the state of contemporary music. But please understand that my issue is not generational snobbery (although my definition of the golden age of music is the early 2000s, there's a bunch of contemporary music I enjoy) nor prudishness towards "secular" music (there's a bunch of music I like that is not explicitly Christian).

Here's my experience: a lot of the trending/popular music recently is cynical, pessimistic, or even nihilistic in either its sound or lyrics or both. It falls into the increasingly popular narrative that the world is burning and everything is meaningless so "let's eat and drink for tomorrow we die" (see 1 Corinthians 15:32). This is more obvious in certain songs than others; sometimes it is just a "vibe"of a song that is hard to put my finger on. In the case of rap music, you might think that it has embraced a hedonistic outlook (which is closely related to nihilism) for decades, with its objectification of women, drugs, and so on. And that's true. But at least when I was in high school rap music often had a danceable or happy beat! A danceable beat doesn't justify its questionable lyrics, but it is simply to contrast it with much of the ("secular") rap music being made nowadays which sounds lifeless and depressed.

The Cheesiness of Rap Music

I started listening to Christian rap back around 2001 or so when I was 11 years old. It wasn't the only thing I listened to but it was the main thing through middle and high school. It was a bit of a lonely experience because none of my friends were into it, even my Christian friends, but somehow that didn't stop me from enjoying it. Then sometime in my 20s I started feeling a bit differently, and I became a bit more sympathetic to the reasons that people generally had for not listening to Christian rap. I started seeing the cheesiness in a lot of it, I wanted music that faced the struggles and questions of life in a more honest way, I didn't want a mini sermon in every song I listened to, and I saw that no Christian rapper could reach the heights of artists like Kendrick or Kanye (in his prime). I never gave up Christian rap but I minimized it for a season.

However, in more recent years I've found myself strongly drawn back to it, in some ways for the very reasons I minimized it in my 20s. On one level it's worth noting that the quality of Christian rap has improved dramatically over the years: it is way easier to get into it now than it was in 2001. But that's not the only reason. In recent years I find myself wanting music that is positive and hopeful—and if it has a sound that is fun or that I can bob my head to, then that's a strong bonus. That's not to say there is no place for music that has a sad tone, or that voices struggle and confusion, or that speaks truth to power. All of that is good and necessary to an extent. But, for me at least, that kind of music and those kinds of messages and feelings cannot have the last word. I can't sit and marinate in that mentality. I appreciate Christian rap because even when the artist is expressing something difficult, it is spoken in the context of hope and trust in God. And as a bonus the hopeful lyrics are often packaged in a catchy beat that I can roll the windows down to.

(As a quick side note, I should add that there is Christian rap that is serious in tone and isn't afraid to tackle difficult subjects. Arguably three of the most significant Christian rap releases of 2024 could fall in that category: Torey D'Shaun's Come and See, Nobigdyl's the people we became, and Aklesso's Loner. I encourage you to check those out if that's more your cup of tea.)

I've even come to a place where I find some of the cheesiness of Christian rap endearing. The other day I had Christian rap on at home and the song "Yahweh" came on by Anike. It's a catchy, danceable song, and one of its lines is "Shake your body for the Lord, keep it tasteful." When we heard that line my wife and I laughed out loud, but whereas in the past the cheesiness might have made me roll my eyes and groan, I found myself appreciating the song even more. In an era when depressing music is trendy, some silliness is refreshing! Maybe the only reason I'm able to embrace Christian rap's silliness is because I've been listening to it for so long. Sometimes it's easier to embrace the quirks of a subculture as an insider than as someone totally foreign to that subculture. So maybe Christian rap won't bring you the same enjoyment it does to me...but maybe give it a chance?

Going Deeper: A Video on Embracing Cringe

As I was thinking through this blog post I stumbled on this discussion between Christian Baxter and Paul Anleitner. Around the 17:30 minute mark they discuss their common experience of initially being drawn to the band Creed when they were younger, then going through a phase of feeling cultural pressure to have the opinion that Creed was "cringe", and then coming back to around again to appreciating them regardless of what other people thought. The journey they described with Creed resonated with my relationship to Christian rap.

You might think that this experience is just a result of growing up: younger people care more about what their peers think, but when they grow up they become less insecure and care less what others think. And there is doubtless some truth to that. But what's interesting about Baxter and Anleitner's discussion is that they connect the dots between their experience with the band Creed and much broader social and cultural trends going on. They reference postmodernism: an outlook that began in the ivory towers of universities and in the theories of philosophers, which emphasized doubting, deconstructing, and critiquing everything, but eventually seeped its way down into popular culture. As a result, the only way one could be considered "cool" and mature in certain spaces was to have a cynical, skeptical, and critical outlook on life. But Baxter and Anleitner suggest that as a culture we are becoming increasingly tired of cynicism and are longing for experiences of sincerity. They note that 2024 was Creed's highest grossing year, despite their heyday being in the late 90s/early 2000s, and interpret that as evidence that our culture is reengaging with things we used to find "cringe". Their discussion gets quite philosophical and deep at points, but if you're into that sort of thing you should check it out.