Unashamed

by Lecrae

But as record executives started introducing me to others, I discovered this was not true. “I want you to meet Lecrae,” the record executive would often say. “He’s a Christian rapper.” “I know who you are,” they would respond with a patronizing smile. “I’m familiar with your music.”

Being an outspoken Christian in the music industry means always feeling out of place.

I try to produce music that is life-giving and inspires people to hope, but it isn’t just for the super-religious. I want to address themes that people who aren’t Christian can appreciate.

Once while on tour I was visiting a mainstream radio station in North Carolina, and a station operator informed me that they wouldn’t air my music: “We really love your sound, but we just don’t play Gospel here.” “It’s not Gospel. It’s hip-hop,” I protested. “It’s just that I am a Christian.”

You feel accepted by those around you, but not all the time or all the way. You may have gotten used to it, but it still raises important questions about what it means to be Christian in a world that assumes Christians are obnoxious. Or irrelevant. Or hypocritical. Or judgmental. Or ignorant. Or bigoted. Or any number of negative adjectives.

Ever since I was a knucklehead kid stirring up trouble, I have always stuck out. I’ve been like people but not exactly like them.

I was an artistic kid growing up in an urban culture that didn’t know what to do with artists. I was influenced by the gangstas in my family but didn’t have the skill set or desire to follow suit.

I didn’t win the Grammy for “Best Rap Performance” that year, and I was surprisingly disappointed when my name wasn’t called. But in retrospect, I think I received something that was more valuable: a reminder that part of being human—and especially being Christian—means not fitting in, and the only solution is learning to look to God for ultimate recognition.

I became a fatherless child before I could even pronounce the word daddy. Raising me by herself meant struggling to make ends meet. Between the occasional government assistance and my mom’s multiple jobs, we never lacked basic necessities.

We always had food on the table.

Part of my bravado was a way to hide the nagging feelings of insignificance as a young kid. My mother and my aunts tried their best to encourage me and tell me they believed in me, but the unspoken forces in the world made me feel like “less than.”

Underneath all of my pain and misbehavior was a sense of emptiness.

And the hole left by my father’s absence throbbed constantly, like an open wound that refused to scab over.

Lying in bed at night before falling asleep, I’d picture my dad showing up and making our family complete.

He was an absentee father struggling with addiction, but in my young mind, he was a superhero. He had the power to swoop in and save the day, to save me from my confusion and frustration and woes—if he wanted to.

Every child wants and needs a father, and mine didn’t want anything to do with me.

unanswered questions that leave them wanting to scream, “How come he don’t want me?” like Will in that famous scene from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air after his deadbeat dad leaves again.

I thought the person who should have found me easy to love didn’t, I wondered if I was worthy of love.

away. I wanted role models who really understood me and never left my side. I wanted role models who spoke my language and were willing to tell me the truth about life. And this is where hip-hop rushed in like water to fill the cracks left by my father’s absence.

My mother worked at a halfway house, and sometimes she would take me with her when she had to work late.

“Here you go, little man,” an old resident whispered to me one day. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a mixtape cassette, and slid it across the table to me.

I memorized every lyric from every song by every artist he included—N.W.A., Beastie Boys, LL Cool J. It was all I wanted to listen to. The music consumed me.

By the time I was eleven or so, all my free time was filled with listening to music and watching videos.

My obsession with hip-hop stemmed from more than my love of music. It also filled the vacuous cavern left by my father’s absence.

This is actually a common social phenomenon in poor communities where fatherlessness is rampant. As one African-American writer who grew up with an absentee dad wrote, “In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the answer [to fatherlessness] for many of us was hip-hop.

When loneliness grew heavy, when I needed advice or direction, when happiness morphed into sadness, I’d listen to Tupac. Unlike my father, he was always there for me. I could trust him.

The implicit message from culture to kids like me was that the world wasn’t made for me, or at least didn’t understand me.

I was only good at hanging out. At after-school programs I’d run around on the playground and goof off with the other hanger-outers, but I lacked any cultural currency or credibility. I felt like I had nothing . . . but then I signed up for a talent show.

“Oh, shoot. Is that Lecrae? I didn’t know he could rap.” And when it was all over, they erupted in applause.

Like I said, where I grew up, one’s currency comes from what they’re good at. From then on, kids would ask me to rap on the playground.

Music was my everything. It was my escape. It was my medicine. It was my therapy. It was my identity. It was my companion. It was my sanity. In the face of so many problems, music was my salvation. Well, almost.

As the aluminum cylinder rotated end over end, time slowed like in The Matrix. I bobbed to the right, and it barely missed my face. “Your daddy had you, and he left you,” he yelled.

When I misbehaved, no one stopped to show me a better path.

I was six years old and staying at a babysitter’s house.

She pulled her pants down, and I saw the female anatomy for the first time. “Come here.”

I trusted her. She was an adult, and adults could be trusted, so I did what she told me to do.

“Alright,” she said afterward. “Don’t tell anybody about this. Go back and play.”

Few knew the importance of reporting child sexual abuse to the authorities, or making sure a child received counseling to process the abuse appropriately.

I didn’t want to tell a soul about the abuse or attempt to cope with it. It reinforced my sense of aloneness and helplessness.

My brain was rewired, and I now believed that I was supposed to physically pleasure girls.

Children who have been molested develop something of a sixth sense that helps them identify other victims. In

Once you identified each other, you would end up messing around and fondling each other.

Life on earth has sharp teeth. It has a way of wounding us. The only way to begin nursing your wounds is to name your wounds.

There are few guarantees in life, but you can count on this: if you ignore your wounds, they will not go away. They

Of course, acknowledging your wounds is not the solution—it is only the first step in it. Healing is a process—the kind that moves

I tried to explain what happened, how I lost track of time and didn’t expect to be gone so long . . . POP! The full force of his hand collided with my face, and my body collapsed.

None of us realized that each act of violence was training us to perpetuate the cycle when we were grown up and could graduate from abused to abuser.

Leaping over the last few stairs, he landed on my chest and pinned me down. Left hook, right hook, left hook, right hook. He was swinging full force, and it was the first time I remember ever fearing for my life. I saw only flashing lights and heard only the sound of my mother screaming for him to stop. Finally, my mom ran to the kitchen and rushed back with a plate in her hands.

Smashing it over his head, a shower of porcelain rained down around me. He fell back, and I crawled away.

Each time I ran away, it wasn’t long before I realized I had no place to go. Where do you run when you have nowhere to go? Home is the place where kids can go when they are hurting and afraid and confused. But I had nowhere.