GRITS on Paving the Way for Lecrae; Creating Quality Over Quantity

Coffee and Bonafide, the duo that makes up legendary Christian hip-hop group GRITS, spoke to Rapzilla about their new release, Saints and Sinners, their impact on Christian rap, where they went, and how they’ve survived for so long.

GRITS has been a group for over 20 years already. In 2010 they released Quarantined, which in many ways was exactly where they would be over the next six to seven years. However, this period of isolation was not unexpected, it was carefully calculated after the grind of many years moving with no stopping. They always knew they’d be back.

GRITS said they knew that Quarantine would be the last project for awhile. When they dropped the album the music industry was in an uproar. There were a lot of labels closing down or merging, and retail really took a hit on CDs. Even the marketing was changing which caused them trouble as independents.

They had also recently finished their contract with Gotee Records and put out 12 albums on there.

It was just time for a pause.

“Family happens, life happens. We started when we were young and did it with the same label,” said Coffee. “You go in different directions. If you have a gift in you, you naturally gravitate back toward it. We were road warriors going city to city creating a fanbase. Michael Jackson died a musician, Prince died a musician, we will always be musicians.”

During that break, Coffee put out two experimental solo hip-hop albums. Bonafide got involved in management and stayed connected to music by doing features and staying up to date.

“I went 1000% into family mode, doing features here and there, and going ventures inside and outside of music,” added Bonafide. “Just concentrated on continuing life where music has opened the doors for me. We have a strong history that we owe it to the fans to keep going.”

GRITS is grateful for the opportunity to still have a large fanbase and be able to return to music after all these years.

“There was no Spotify, Instagram, we were just starting out on Myspace…People couldn’t access music so freely,” said Bonafide. “People are still digging us? Wow man.”

They feel God has ordained their journey together on this path as they commented on the number of groups that have broken up or created internal beef. Some can’t get back together because they all hate each other.

“That’s what God put in us whether we are making money or we are not,” Coffee said.

So when they finally got together to start crafting the songs, they just kept flowing even before the EP was thought of.

“We wanted to take 2017 and just release content,” Coffee stated. “I would love success, but let’s just keep doing what we actually do. Let’s service the people and do what comes naturally. I’m not trying to be an old school nostalgia act. This is now content.”

The duo wants to flood the market with quality music, not what’s been playing on the radio.

“I’m used to Jay-Z, Nas, Mos Def and Talib Kweli. The guys now are not emcees,” he continued.

The EP has five tracks on it and they promise more will drop over the next year or so.

Part of GRITS’ charm as artists is their attention to being hook driven. If you think about their two biggest hits, “Ooh Aah” and “Here We Go,” the chorus are super catchy and the focal point of the song.

“We’re a very hook driven group,” said Coffee. “The best comparison would be Pac, Outkast, and A Tribe Called Quest.”

Bonafide chimed in, “We hire, musicians, we have actual music. We are not an image, gimmick, or trend. We put out music period. That’s been a struggle with our genre. They are so concerned with how much theology is in our genre they forget that it’s music. When you have music playing at the family reunion they are picking up the stuff they grew up with, the classics, that don’t say Jesus once.”

Bonafide said on the creative end, listeners should be able to appreciate art over substance sometimes and if not, “it says something about you.”

“Even our great rappers take a fall, and the fall is sometimes greater than the image you put out,” said the veteran rapper. “Remember we are all prone to fall. That’s the premises of Saints and Sinners”.

“There’s no grace. They take it personally,” said Coffee. “‘How could you do this for me?’ they’ll say but, you don’t know me or what I go through.”

Lastly, GRITS is humbled that they were part of the solution for Christian hip-hop crossing over into the mainstream.

“We kicked down a lot of doors so Lecrae didn’t have to struggle when it came to doing a record with a Ty Dolla $ign,” said Bonafide. “We had already kicked those doors down for guys to be checking for him so it wouldn’t be abnormal to hear artists from that genre do something with other guys. We made people mad and made people confused but at the end of the day it was in God’s plans.”

Purchase Saints and Sinners on iTunes or Amazon.

Read part one where GRITS’ breaks down the EP here.

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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