INTERVIEW: LECRAE SPEAKS ON MUSIC AND ILLUMINATI CRITICISM
EBONY.com: First, loved your latest album,
especially the title track, “Gravity.” You’re rapping about “a place
where there’s no gravity” – I take that to mean a place free from sin. But what
does that mean to you?
Lecrae: “Gravity” really represents the falleness of
this world and the weight and heaviness of it all. And no matter how much
power, pleasure, or possession you can acquire, there’s still that weight. You
can be the richest person in the world, it’s not going to stop your mother from
passing away. Pleasure is just this endless chase. [I'm] just saying that we
all want to be free from the gravity, everyone is looking for that and [with
this album] I just tried to give some dialogue about what it looks like, to be
free from the weight of this world.
EBONY.com: On your song “Co-sign,”
it sounds like you’re saying you don’t necessarily want to be considered a
Christian rapper anymore but just a rapper who’s a Christian. When did that
change come about? Do you see it as a change?
Lecrae: Yeah, you know, as I’ve gotten a little more
acknowledgement in mainstream music, one of the things I’ve noticed is that
there are so many stigmas attached to names. And I think my music comes with a
message that I want everybody to hear and I don’t want a stigma to keep a
person from hearing the message. I will obviously never deny being a Christian,
that’s my faith, my identity. But I don’t want my music to be categorized with
a presupposition. So sometimes people hear a term and they say, “Aw. I don’t like
it.” Before they even give the music a chance. My big thing is just getting rid
of all of the presuppositions so people can just sit with the music and allow
it to speak to them.
EBONY.com:
It can seem for Christians who are not new to the faith that everyone’s
goal, whether it’s musicians, artists, preachers, it’s to reach out to those
outside the faith and find ways to do that that won’t turn people outside the
faith off and those who are a little farther along can sometimes be left out of
that. Do you consider your main goal to reach new people and bring them
to the faith?
Lecrae: No, no, no. If you’re swimming in the deep end
of the spiritual pool, so to speak, you’re farther along in your faith, I think
the music is still very rich. There are a lot of parables in there, a lot of
depth that you would have to come through to really grasp the message.
[You may hear] cliché terms like, “Don’t live for this world.” They’re cliché
terms but when you start unpacking that and what that looks like in song and
story, I think that really helps a more mature believer say, “Man, that’s deep.
That’s enriching and fulfilling.”
EBONY.com:
There was a little bit of controversy surrounding your “Confessions of a
Millionaire” video. People were saying they saw Illuminati signs in the video.
Were you aware of that? What’s your response when people say things like that?
Lecrae: It gets to a point where, anything that is not just blatant, if
there’s any kind of symbolism, it just gets equated as negative or it’s
demonized. The Bible uses plenty of symbols so I think symbolism is notbad.
There are symbols all throughout the video. There’s a wolf, which symbolizes
the predatory nature of us (humans), we just want and want and want and hunger.
There’s color schemes where one young lady is wearing green to show the pursuit
of wealth and there’s a deer head in there because it’s a wealthy party because
if you go to any wealthy person’s house, they’re showing off their
accomplishments. So it’s really just a lot of that kind of symbolism. None of
it was intended for evil.
EBONY.com:
So how do you deal with that, when you’re trying to be in a positive space and
you have people – even Christians—who are coming and attacking you for stuff
like that or just for doing hip hop, in general, how do you stay grounded in
your faith and stay above that fray?
Lecrae: I try to pay more attention more to the
positive aspects of what the music is doing. There’ve been some professional
athletes who have publicly spoken about how that song has inspired and
challenged them and so those type of things encourage me. And then on top of
that, I know that people don’t really know me so all they can do is kind of
assume my motive and assume what’s happening, so I don’t take it to heart. They
don’t really know me so I can’t get that flustered and hopefully if they got to
sit down and have a conversation with me they’d say, “Oh, O.K. I get it.” And
then we'd move on.
EBONY.com: There’s also a rumor that Jay-Z is trying to sign you. Is
that true?
Lecrae: [Laughs] At this point in time, no.
Essentially, he was looking for some conscious artists and my name was thrown
into a pool of other artists and that’s as far as it went.
EBONY.com:
Is that something that you would consider?
Lecrae: Nah. For multiple reasons, but one majorly, I’m
an independent artist, I’m a label owner. I love my independence. I love being
able to create the story. And I want to do in many ways what Jay-Z is doing for
the mainstream. He’s inspiring a lot of people to think they can do something
on their own. I want to inspire people that they can do it on their own and not
compromise their faith and beliefs, as well. So, that’s what I stand for.
EBONY.com: Before joining
the faith, you had a lot of hardships—a near-arrest, a terrible car accident,
some near-death moments—that literally brought you to your come-to-Jesus
moment. Since becoming a Christian, have you faced anything else that made you
reconsider your decision to follow Christ?
Lecrae: I can’t think of one single event, but I do know
that the Christian faith is one that has to be tried and tested consistently.
The Bible talks about making your "calling and election sure." And so I think you just
have to ask those questions: Do I really believe this? Am I really serious
about this? To prod and probe to see where you really stand. Hopefully you
always end up with that firm foundation. So I think that’s healthy. I’ve had
some circumstances and experiences that have been tough, but those trials and
those tests on the other side of them have always produced a stronger faith.
The most recent
[hardship] I can think of is criticism. You influence 10 people, you’ve got one
critic; you influence 100 people, you’ve got 10 critics, and so on and so
forth. And so that comes with a lot of assumptions, a lot of rumors, a lot of
people involved in aspects of your life and you’re just like "What? This
has nothing to do with my music." And so in those circumstances you
wonder, “Man, is it really worth it? What’s the point? But when you have good
community like I have, close people who encourage you to keep going so that
when you make it to the other side of that [hardship] and get a sober
perspective, you say, “It’s worth it.” And, "God is real. He’s here for
me."
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