Is There Enough Creativity in Christian Hip-Hop to be Relevant?

Just like hip-hop has artistic legends in the game, hip-hop also has O.G.’s in the form of personnel who push the craft forward. Josh Niemyjski of Sphere of Hip-Hip and Tim Trudeau of Syntax Creative spoke to Rapzilla about various topics regarding Christian hip-hop.

Question 1: Can A Christian Rapper Impact Mainstream Hip-Hop?

“Should any rapper establish the sound of Christian or not?” said Trudeau. “Should any rapper be the one that says, ‘Hey everyone, this is what we’re going to do now. Let’s do it’, or should it be a whole bunch of guys that are super talented at writing things down working with equipment making what is awesome to them?”

He continued, “I wouldn’t want a Christian to do that the same way I wouldn’t want a non-Christian to do that. That’s boring to me…I want flavors.”

Watch the full interview below:

Question 2: Do Artists Copy What’s Popular to be Successful?

“The short answer for me is, yes, probably” said Niemyjski. “Just from the standpoint of leadership in our scene in that when something seems like it’s working that’s kind of the model.”

The SOHH leader, thinks sometimes originality is hard to come by and often feels it’s easier to “go with the flow.”

“It’s just easy to do what everyone else is doing that’s already successful because it’s proven to be successful.”

Watch the full interview below:

Question 3: Why Does All Christian Hip-Hop Sound the Same?

Both Tim and Josh would agree it sounds the same, but as a disclaimer, feel that they could be missing out on a lot of the newer underground stuff because of how many artists are out now.

“Creativity isn’t necessarily rewarded,” said Niemyjski. “It’s typically a follow the leader sort of mentality which can be good and could be bad.”

Watch the full interview below:

What do you think of their thoughts?

Justin Sarachik
Justin Sarachik
Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Rapzilla.com. He has been a journalist for over a decade and has written or edited for Relevant, Christian Post, BREATHEcast, CCM, Broken Records Magazine, & more. He's written over 10,000 articles, done over 1,000 interviews, and is in post-production for documentaries on Danny "D-Boy" Rodriguez & Mario "Machete" Perez. He's the project manager of the upcoming video game Run the Court and of the media brand Crimefaces. Justin likes to work with indie artists to develop their brands & marketing strategies. Catch him interviewing artists on Survival of the Artist Podcast & creating videos on his social media channels.
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