Get to know Joe

Joe: I started listening to Christian hip hop in 1998, which was around the time Grape Tree Records was pretty much at the peak at the time. My first gospel rap album I ever listened to was Lil’ Raskull, Glory to Glory. It had certain beats because that was ‘98, and I had never heard of gospel rap before 1998. I was listening to mostly Wu-Tang and things like that. That album was my first gospel rap. I bought it at a Christian store that was right across the street from Blue Gibbons in Bond Hill, called True Broom. I bought that album, and I listened to it. I didn’t get another till Cross Movement.

Cross Movement came out with the House of Representatives in ‘99.

Stephen: I remember that.

Joe: I took heat off of that because I was into Wu-Tang, and there was a group of people rapping pretty much like Wu-Tang at the time, but they were talking about Christ. If you remember, they made a mention of this on the History album in 2007. They made it number three on the rap city charts. The number one single at the time was Eminem’s Hi My Name is. When they found out that they were a Christian rap group, they kicked them off of MTV.

Stephen: I do remember that, a little bit

Joe:Yes, because they mentioned that on the history album that when they found out that they were Christian, they kicked them off. When I heard that album, I went and found it because it was difficult. Gospel rap in those days, it wasn’t like you could just go and pick it up. You had to find a specific store and all that, and there weren’t that many places.

Stephen:You have to seek that out. You have to hunt it down.

Joe:Yes, especially if it was a popular album that just came out, you really had to. In those days, there wasn’t really any internet. You had to listen to the thing. They probably say, “Out now at Sam Goody’s,” or something like that. You had to go to Sam Goody. They probably didn’t have it in stock because it wasn’t popular and no one knew what gospel rap was. They knew Will at the time. Will Smith was out with Jiggy Wit It but they didn’t have House of Representatives. He was like, “Oh, man.” You had to know somebody that knows somebody that listens to gospel rap. They know how to maneuver.

ter a while, I started listening to mostly Cross Movement, Grape Tree Records, but then I got really into Cross Movement. They started having their own record label, which brought out, of course, Da’ T.R.U.T.H., Flame, and Lecrae in ’04 because all their albums dropped the same year, 2004. After that, I was a fan. I was already doing rap. I was a hip hop artist. I used to do battle raps at Top Cats and different things like that. I’ve been writing music since I was 12 but I really didn’t get all the way into gospel rap, or really be a gospel rapper until I got the calling in 2007.

Stephen: So, you were introduced to it in ‘98. It starts popping a little bit across 2004. Do you want everyone to talk about that time?

Joe:Yes.

Continue in Issue 2-Making David