GeGee-the first signed female Christian rap artist-by collaborating on her first album, I’m for Real (1990). Prior to his death, he helped launch the career of his sister, Genie Rodriguez-Lopez, known as M.C. He saw rap music as a vehicle to reach inner-city youth in Dallas through the Street Church Academy, a ministry founded in the Buckner Terrace area of Dallas in 1983 by his parents. Rodriguez was murdered a year later in Dallas, Texas, for unknown reasons. In that same year, the late Danny “D-Boy” Rodriguez emerged on the scene with Plantin’ a Seed. In 1989, multiracial Christian rap trio DC Talk released their self-titled debut album, becoming one of the most popular acts in Christian music and eventually exploring rock and pop sounds as well.
These groups were wary of the Christian rap label, and intent on proving themselves first and foremost as skilled MC’s. Symphony, the Dynamic Twins, and I.D.O.L. Several prominent holy hip-hop acts emerged from the greater Los Angeles area including JC and the Boys, Gospel Gangstaz, L.A. One of their first singles off the album, “Listen Up,” featured “old school” hip-hop drum machine and Casio sounds of the 1980s and contained a wide range of samples from the Philadelphia sound of Gamble and Huff to the theme song from Happy Days. (Soldiers for Christ) self-produced the gospel rap album Fully Armed (1987). On the West Coast, Los Angeles–based group S.F.C. (Preachers in Disguise) in 1988 with their Run DMC–inspired street style and the addition of clergy collars. Several Christian-themed hip-hop albums followed Bible Break, including New York’s Michael Peace with Rrrock It Right (1987) and Dallas’s P.I.D. 14 spot on Christian radio in 1986, many gospel rappers have called his style “soft” and lacking in a street sensibility that has been central to hip-hop.
While the title track of the album reached the No. Hailing from Oklahoma, Wiley’s message included select stories from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible supported by up-tempo beats inspired by current R&B music. That said, Stephen Wiley’s 1985 release Bible Break has been celebrated by many holy hip-hop artists as the first gospel rap album, including California Christian rapper T-Bone in his song “Our History” on the album GospelAlphaMegaFunkyBoogieDiscoMusic (2002). The first commercially released and distributed Christian rap record was Queens, New York MC McSweet’s 1982 album The Gospel Beat: Jesus-Christ, recorded on Lection Records of Polygram. While Islam-and in particular, the Five Percent Nation-has historically been the most prominent religious ingredient in hip-hop’s diverse religious stock, explicit references to Christianity found a home in the steadily growing culture of holy hip-hop during the mid-1980s as secular hip-hop began to migrate from the fringe of American popular music into the mainstream. The first holy hip-hop artists came of age during the geopolitical and economic shifts of the post–civil rights years and comprise what many refer to as the “Hip-Hop Generation.” As this diverse subculture of predominantly Black youth explored and converted to Christianity, they in turn brought hip-hop worldviews and aesthetics to their worship practices.