AMP on bringing the gospel to Korea through Christian hip hop

Three girls in the front row of a Sam Ock concert in Korea began to cry as he shared the gospel.

This image sticks out as motivation for CL, who with Sam Ock and J. Han form AMP, the founding group of the Atlanta-based record label Good Fruit Co. All three artists are second-generation Korean Americans from Maryland, but they did not initially set out to reach Korea. When doors opened there to share their music, though, they saw opportunity to impact.

“As we went to Korea, we realized the state of the church and how media was influencing culture, and even how the church was seeing how important media is,” CL said. “Hip hop does exist there, and hip hop is a growing platform, but if we can bring what we’ll call ‘positive hip hop,’ which is really Christian hip hop, into Korea, [we] really hope it’ll impact the culture there.”

The tears triggered after Sam Ock’s performance in Korea show how AMP is making an impact.

“People here are hungry to hear the true gospel. People are hungry to grow,” CL said. “But there’s so much competition for these young kids there because of the distraction of media, and Sam mentioned the distraction of beauty. There’s plastic surgery places like every corner of the block there.”

“For graduation gifts from high school, the parents will be like, ‘Hey, we’ll get you double eyelid surgery.'” J. Han said. “That’s a thing.”

Watch AMP’s two-part interview below. Buy its most recent release, Glory Songs Deluxe Edition, on iTunes.

David Daniels
David Daniels
David Daniels is a columnist at Rapzilla.com and the managing editor of LegacyDisciple.org. He has been published at Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, CCM Magazine, Bleacher Report, The Washington Times and HipHopDX.
RELATED ARTICLES

Most Popular