Called to hip hop
In a press release for Uncomfortable, Mineo used similar language to Illmind about tables.
“At the end of the day,” Mineo said, “I want to sit at the table of hip hop, be respected for my artistry and have an opportunity to bring what I believe to the mix like everyone else does.”
Mineo explained this metaphor in an interview with Rapzilla on the Uncomfortable Tour.
What is that table, and who’s at the table?
Mineo: In hip hop, there are all kinds of different tables in a sense it feels likes. There’s the Fader Magazine, and the whole Chance the Rapper, Action Bronson, Danny Brown — they’re kind of sitting at their own table. Then you got Drake, Kendrick, Cole, Kanye, the bigger names. It’s like a table.
For me, I feel like I’ve been put off in a corner at like a kiddie table — subgenred. We’re like, man, we make just as good music as these people. We want to sit at those tables and be a part of that conversation, as opposed to being in a sub-conversation, in the sense that, “There’s hip hop, and then there’s these guys.”
When you’re trying to influence hip hop, it’s hard to do it without being in those conversations. [Hip-hop reporter] Rob Markman said to me, “Just go take a seat at that table that you want to sit at, and sit there until people recognize you.”
What conversations are they having at that table or those tables that you want to be at, and how would the conversation change if you were there?
Mineo: Everybody’s coming to the table with their own conversation — whatever they’re passionate about; whatever they want to talk about. Drake’s talking about what he wants to talk about — his city and vulnerability in relationships. Kendrick’s coming to the table talking about what he wants to talk about, and J. Cole — all these guys, whatever they believe is bleeding through in their music.
But the thing that got them to that table to have a conversation was their artistry. “I respect your craft as a musician, and, now, what you have to say is important, or we’re willing to hear it.” I just want to create art that is excellent to a point where it can be mixed in with any other mainstream artist, and, through that, I think then all of a sudden your perspective and the things you’re talking about have space to be heard.
Do you think you’ve influenced hip-hop culture at all so far?
Mineo: Hip-hop culture is such a vast and evolving thing, it’s hard to say that you’ve changed it. But the stories that I hear of people getting a hold of the music, hearing it, appreciating it, it being an influence on them, that is in a micro-sense influencing hip-hop culture. Your voice, your beliefs and your ideals are penetrating somebody’s ears and having an access to say things that maybe other artists won’t say. That’s important to me.
Just give me the opportunity is really it, and don’t marginalize me because of what I believe. That’s been the big fight. When we come in with these labels on us, a lot of times we’re immediately marginalized and not given the opportunity to be heard. That’s the thing that we’ve been trying to fight, or I’ve been trying to just stay away from. I don’t want to add extra titles. Let my music do the talking. That’s why I made the music.
Mineo’s effort to influence hip-hop culture may be more apparent recently, but his contentment to define influence in a micro-sense is deep-rooted. His “Christian hip hop”-start came nearly a decade ago through T.R.U.C.E., the hip-hop ministry of Nicky Cruz Outreach in New York City. T.R.U.C.E. taught Mineo how to use hip hop to evangelize.
Mineo’s music sounds less like traditional Christian hip hop nowadays. But former T.R.U.C.E. director David Ham, a pastor at Times Square Church who served as Mineo’s manager from 2009-2013, still sees him after the same aim as his T.R.U.C.E. days.
“His desire to come to the table within the hip-hop community, to be respected and for them to respond well to his art is really just, for me, the foundation that he got as an evangelist,” Ham said, “to be able to go to those places that are really in need of Jesus Christ; to be able to go to the dark places and present the light of Christ. … That’s evangelism 101. That’s Andy saying, ‘I’m stepping outside of the four walls of the church. I’m grateful for all of the support and the fans that I’ve had that are booking me from one youth group to the next church event to the next youth conference, but now I’m going to a place where the gospel’s so needed, and I’m going to be unashamed there.’”
The issue of whether an artist is “unashamed” or not extends beyond art to how they live. The public’s view of how artists live, though, is limited to interviews and social media. So when a Fox 5 NY anchor asked Mineo before a performance about his hat, “1-1-Six … what team is that?” and Mineo stumbled over his answer and said, “My team,” critics concluded that he was ashamed.
Ninety-nine percent of artists’ lives are not recorded, yet Christians remain content to make absolute assessments about how unashamed artists are based on the one percent they witness. Reach artists could reveal behind-the-scenes conversations they have with people in the hip-hop industry to combat the criticism, but that would not be healthy to those relationships. Then again, someone who felt comfortable to talk about one of those conversations interviewed Mineo about Uncomfortable, Sway Calloway.
“One time Andy asked me — I don’t know if you remember this — but you said, ‘Hey man, what about you? Where’s your faith lie? Do you do this because of your faith’ — I’m paraphrasing — ‘or basically is it just your job?’” Calloway said. …
“Dude that stuck on me for a while. All it told me was, ‘This dude really cares.’ … It warmed me inside because I knew beyond the business, this is somebody I could call, ‘Hey Andy, what’s up, man? I’m hungry. Y’all got something,’ or ‘I’m falling off my square. Give me some feedback.’ My faith was here way before I came into the music business, but it’s difficult because, as Tracy was saying, you’re faced with all kinds of temptations, pitfalls, lures, you don’t even know where they’re coming from.”
Mineo told Rapzilla that he and fellow Reach artist Lecrae often talk about three places where conversations happen — the “synagogue,” the “marketplace” and the “third place.”
“The synagogue is the place where religious conversation happens,” Mineo said. “The marketplace is where there’s a plethora of ideas. It’s kind of mainstream culture in a sense. … The third place is the place behind closed doors — the place that nobody really gets to see. It’s when that person from the synagogue and that person from the market get together, and they go have dinner in a place where no one else is around and speak candid. That’s where a lot of ministry is being done, and when people can’t see it or know what’s going on behind those closed doors, they make stuff up.”
Behind closed doors, Mineo has done more than converse. He has made himself uncomfortable for the sake of his faith, according to people close to him.
