Lecrae

“When I hung out with my Uncle Chris, things got real. He was fun, talkative, and loud. He was the life of the party and a magnet for mischief. Since he saw the world through a gangsta's lens, he wanted me to become tough and aggressive.”

“I function, I live life as a Christian, and me living life as a Christian doesn't mean I'm a sanitized person. It means that I readily admit I'm a jacked up person, and I need a savior.”

“Life is a precious gift - a gift we often take for granted until it is threatened.”

“For a lot of people, groups, Christians included, issues are homogenized. And so to be a Christian, I'm either this staunch, conservative Republican, or I'm this tree-hugging liberal. You're stereotyped. It's almost assumed that people know what your issues are going to be.”

“People have got to form some kind of unified fronts where you know who your allies are, you know who your friends are, and really begin to work together to create different kinds of infrastructures to protect one another and to help one another thrive.”

“Your identity is not wrapped up in how right you get it or how perfect you can posture yourself. But, your identity is wrapped up in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“My views as a Christian means there's a moral plumb line that I'm fighting to adhere to.”

“My mom was big on education, big on reading, so she was always pushing books on me: 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X,' like, 'Read these books.' And it was like, man, I'm learning stuff that I just can't get anywhere else.”

“I always liked the content of a Common but the commercial viability of a Lil Jon. And I would say, 'Why don't those worlds ever come together?' So for me, it was like, 'Let's do that.'”

“I think complexity is beautiful.”

“I've done songs with legends like De La Soul with Pete Rock. I've done songs with B.O.B. I've done songs with Big Kit.”

“I knew my ways were unfulfilling. I chased power, pleasure, possessions, something satisfying. I knew I kept getting let down. I knew it was insanity, and I was never going to find fulfillment, but I didn't know what else to look for.”

“I think of people like Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and Isaac Hayes. They all came out of the South, and they followed a certain tradition and energy. That's no knock to groups like The Temptations or The Supremes, not at all, but they were way more polished in how they did things.”

“Nobody would deny that if someone was a billionaire in 1962, his billions are going to affect all of his descendants. The reverse is also true. The lack of education, material, and finances for a slave are going to affect the descendants of that individual as well.”

“I think every artist reaches a place where they want to transcend genre.”

“If you subscribe to any moral code that says you should care for humanity, obviously black people will fit into that category.”

“College allows you to make better decisions, better friends, and a better future. There's only one catch: when the opportunity comes, you actually have to take it.”

“I navigate different cultures daily, and I understand how people can make false assumptions because of their lack of interaction with the cultures I find myself in. But if they don't frequent these spaces much, how can they rush to judgment?”

“For me, 2016-17 was hell, and there's no way around it for me. I went through pain, depression, fear, doubt, and all of that was a journey that I was able to write through, and then I wrote when I was coming out of that dark place as well.”