Christian Hip Hop and the Media: How Can We Improve It’s Exposure?

Here are some of the milestones: *BET’s 106 & Park did a week long segment on Holy Hip Hop * Free & AJ left because they couldn’t continue to support the show because they couldn’t let their little cousins watch a show that didn’t represent them * Shade45 did a segment with AppleJaxx of Nureau Ink that got a favorable response * CCM covers a story on Lil Ras and did a whole magazine dedicated to Holy Hip Hop and the future of Hip Hop * Without A Trace plays KJ52 and uses positive music as a theme for the show * Mr. J Medeiros & Ohmega Watts on NBA Live ‘08 ( Mr. J. Medeiros is part of it with his song “Silent Earth Remix” which is produced by Ohmega Watts) * Applejaxx’s song “Nureau Anthem” feat. T.Bizzy is featured on HipHopDX * Much Luvv covered by OkayPlayer.com * Hip Hop Magazine “The Source” interviewed RedCloud * Braille featured on Myspace and 2009 NBA Live Trailer * L.A. Symphony Break’s It Down For NFL Tour 2008 on XBOX 360 * KJ-52 “Fan Mail” Video 1 on Gospel Music Channel * Without A Trace plays KJ52 and uses positive music as a theme for the show * Sphere Of Hip Hop is on XM * KJ52 has sold over 500,000 on all his albums combined most of which sold over 150,000, * Grits has sold over 150,000 most of their record have sold over 75,000 at least and more than 500,000 * Lecrae has sold over 100,000 albums of the After The Music Stop project * Da Truth’s latest project charted #1 in the gospel market by featuring many Rhythm & Praise artists. * La Symphony has sold quiet a few, 4th Ave Jones, Knowdaverbs, etc… have also * Gotee I think has sold more than CMR. Or atleast its a close tie now. Maybe CMR has more now with Da Truth and everybody they are putting out. * I know for a good while it was Graptree then Gotee then Uprok then uprok feel out and not its Gotee and CMR at the top of the food chain. * There has been a lot of pressure on the industry to clean up rap lyrics along with sales being down * Lecrae’s third album, Rebel, reaches #8 Billboard Top Rap Albums, #3 in Hip Hop on iTunes, #11 in All Albums on iTunes, #1 Gospel Billboard and #2 on Christian Billboard. Media Coverage I’m sure yall head the Kj52 Dear Slim song that MTV covered as a diss track. To make it a news worthy piece that had to cut out the spiritual part and focus on making it some silly beef situation. Did You know MTV banned Mr J Medieros Constance video for “graphic content” which is bogus they have rappers with strippers in the back ground, and Mr J is talking about a real problem that addresses a major social issue. In 2006 500,000 to 1.2 million people where trafficked over international boarders and NO ONE WAS PROSECUTED IN 2006 FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING, That’s a major issue. But MTV won’t play it, but they will play censored version of songs about graphic sex with women, strippers dancing in the background and misogynistic music. BET also banned a quite of few Christian videos from their play list including Ahmad and 4th Ave Jones, they had the song Move On played on MTV. Its was a good song and video. MTV and VH1 are owned by the same company. MTV played dear slim as a beef record. VH1 says a song about praying for dear slim was one of the worst moments in hip hop ever. That was free promotion for Kj by the way and I’m sure its helped his sales because many more people heard his name and music and probably got interested. News is publicity. And you can take a minus and make it a plus. AppleJaxx of Nureau Ink was on Shade45 and he got good publicity on the don’t quit you day job segment? Ever said he should rap and quit his day job. Thats a milestone in Holy Hip Hop. Anyone notice that we got positive coverage on a secular station? What Has Worked So Far KJ: focused on the white suburban youth groups with his silly songs and pop music and I think thats the key to his success. But there is only one Kj. Grits: had good distro and got the videos played on Rap City and got a good following. But there is only one Grits. The Cross Movement: appealed to the Older Theological heads in the urban gospel church market, and that’s how they did good. But there is only one CM. T Bone: was consistent on the bible thumping demon assassin lyrics and appealed to the Hispanic community and toured at a lot of teen challenges, victory outreach and other places like that. But there is only one T Bone. CHH Needs To Grow Up The dialogue in Christian rap needs to broaden on content to include social and political dialogue to engage some of the older young adults. We need more content on Social Justice issues, like civil rights, and freedom or speech, etc… We need to discuss real issues people deal with and not just fun music for youth groups. We need to be ourselves and be good at what we do. The quality and content in CHH has risen in recent years a lot and that’s good. We need to keep pressing on. CHH NEEDS * We MUST GET the Gospel market and get the Young Adult crowed engaged * We need Nationally Syndicated Radio * We need Nationally Syndicated TV * We Need industry wide standards, to bring an end to all the conflict between different camps * We need a play list format to support across the board * We need to build up your gospel market following before you branch out or try to expand beyond. * CHH needs to get the attention of the traditional and contemporary gospel market like Da Truth did with the song with Tye Tribbet and they need to focus on making music and reaching out to young adults who have jobs and can buy albums more than youth who can’t afford albums or have to beg money from their parents. * We need to market to young adults, with more social content, and deal with real issues, not just catchy songs. * We should have balanced material. Our first focus should be build the gospel market, traditional and contemporary. Because those are the ones that you want to support your music. My Conversation With Sway About Hip Hop being “Dead” and CHH Sway presented an award and was saying since all his friend sit around and talk about is Hip Hop Dead he said that he feels that Christian Rap / Holy Hip Hop is the missing element in Hip Hop. Sway stated that he wants to do a MTV news piece on the Holy Hip Hop Here are some things I got out of the conversation: * With the current state of the industry, Hip Hop is Dying, Jesus is the only I know that can bring things back from the dead * Holy Hip Hop has the clean lyrics and albums that people are looking for now with all this noise about not using certain words in the industry. We already got that. * We shouldn’t market to mainstream. * We should do what makes us unique and focus on what works the lyrics & content * Let them come to us if they ever do once we’ve established ourselves and not let them dictate to us but us dictate to them. Don’t go to them * We should try and build our Christian Market to were in the gospel market we can sell 150,000 to 250,000 a cd consistently and more. * Build our gospel fan base so you still have the strong Christian market support. * We should try to be excellent at what we do and secure our fan base before we try to get the mainstream attention. My Conclusion After talking to Sway, Dj Maj, AppleJaxx and Tre-9 and others in the industry, it seems clear we need to come together and a body, and respect the arm and feet, those called to the body and those called to the streets. The message is different but the body is one. We need to sure up the Gospel Market base, be authentic to who we are, make good music, market to young adults and the gospel urban market before we try to join the mainstream movement. We shouldn’t seek out the mainstream, but let it come to us with what we have and not let them change us. We need Christocentric lyrics, we need relevant music that relates to peoples lives and issues, so be real about who you are and what you do, keep it gospel, speak from the Judeo-Christian world view, we need to deal with issues of social injustice, civil rights violations, spitting only Christian standards to an immoral world. Focus on building the gospel market fan base and reaching young adults first. Other things we need to do that can help is focus on marketing to College Radio and get our singles licensed to play on Radio, TV and Movies.

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Christian Hip Hop and the Media: How Can We Improve It’s Exposure?

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