KB, a Christian rapper who scored major crossover success with “100,” his latest E.P., believes music plays a monumental role in helping expose and shape culture — and he has a pointed message for fans and fellow artists alike: take responsibility for what you create and consume.
“I think music is sort of the spokesperson,” the 25-year-old told TheBlaze recently. “It sort of serves as the spokesperson of a culture and it serves as sort of a reporter.”
In addition to offering a lens into societal values, KB believes music also holds the power to have an ideological impact by bending peoples’ “worldview one way or another.”
The rapper specifically addressed negative and explicit content in music today. On the consumer side, he said that people should pay close attention to what they’re taking in.
And he said that artists — especially rappers — whom KB described as “leaders of the culture,” need to be completely honest about the negative themes they sometimes tout.
“Rappers that talk about selling cocaine, they talk a lot about the heaven side of it,” he said. “Everyone wants to have nice cars, huge houses, move our families out the hood and be protected.”
But all too often, he noted, artists don’t fully convey the dangers of living these lifestyles — realities he believes fans need to hear.
“It’s all contingent on a lie, that there’s this free, fast life that you can live dangerous above the law … when really there’s another side of it … that it’s a very hard hell-like life to sort of live for the moment,” he explained. “These rappers [and] artists in general need to be honest about the full picture.”
KB told TheBlaze that he thinks that the current culture is “religiously exhausted” and that many people are soul-searching. But rather than a negative outlook on Christianity’s future, he believes that the faith may actually be poised to gain new ground.
“We’re thirsty for something greater than we've been feeding ourselves for [the past] 50 to 60 years,” he said. “I think that the light of the gospel is bursting forth as a legitimate alternative.”
This is the message that KB is also intent on bringing to the masses. Passionate about spreading Christianity, he also explained what drives him to create faith-inspired music.
As a teenager, he said he struggled to figure out who he was, feeling hopeless and answer-less at times.
KB eventually met up with Lecrae, a popular Christian rapper and the co-founder of Reach Records, who showed him that it’s entirely possible to make music and travel the world as a professional artist; he’s now a Reach Records artist.
KB recently captured mainstream attention after “100,” his most recent E.P., made the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Christian Albums chart, the No. 4 spot on the Rap Albums chart and the No. 22 slot on the Billboard 200.
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