A new wave of rap musicians is using the gospel and the music of the streets to save souls instead of cursing and singing about drugs and sex.
Transformation Crusade is one of several rap groups nationwide with the idea that kids who don't listen to a sermon in church will listen to a rhyming message brought by muscle-bound, hip-talking guys with a sound system."We're not like other rappers, rapping for ourselves. We're rapping for God and no one else. It's not just entertainment, it's ministry. We want to see sinners saved and saints released," says the group's rap song, RAP (Righteousness and Praise).
The group, composed of present and former students at the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, recently released its second tape.
"Because it's unorthodox and untraditional, it reaches those who are tuning out the gospel," said Andre Sims, 26, a seminary student at Liberty and a former gang member. "It's the same gospel, it's new and different."
Sims said he came to Liberty to learn the gospel so he could take it back to the inner city. Rap serves that purpose, he said.
"It breaks the stereotype that Christians are sissies, or white, or nerds," said Chris Williamson, 21, a senior majoring in biblical studies. "We lift weights. We play basketball."
Transformation Crusade started about two years ago "as a way to keep our fire alive," and to find an application in the streets of the classwork at Liberty, Sims said.
Williamson and Daryl Fitzgerald do nearly all of the rapping, Sims preaches, and Sims' wife, Kathy, 24, designs their costumes and counsels with young women after the performances.
"Even though it's the music of the street, it goes everywhere," says Fitzgerald, 22, a junior psychology major.
The group, and others like it, is going places.
Christian rap first began to surface nationally in the mid-1980s with Christian musicians such as Stephen Wiley.
Christian rap - often thought too hip for the traditional Christian station and perhaps too Christian for the soul stations - is beginning to be played on the radio.