Man, I'm sitting here with Lecrae, bro, appreciate you. Absolutely. I've been a big fan ever since, I can remember it ever since I was a little kid, you know, I was listening to your music, I remember my dad put me on ever since I was like 5 to 7.

So to be sitting here with you now, talking about- That's crazy. Everything's gonna be cool, man. That's crazy. Man, so first off, I just want to ask you, like, so you, you know, you in the celebrity spotlight, you in the rap culture, I'm in the NBA, how do you stay grounded and how do you not let, you know, whether that's social media followers, you know, people treating you like you're a guy at your concert, whatever it is, how do you stay grounded and just be like a regular guy with everything going on?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think part of it is like making sure I keep some of the people I came up with in my circle, you know what I mean? People who are not impressed with any, it's like they're not impressed with me. They're like, "Man, I know you.

What are you talking about?" Like, you know what I mean? And it takes some time, take your friends a little time to breathe the air that you're breathing, you know what I mean? It's kind of like, you know, "What? What is going on?" But they still see you as yourself.

So I try to keep those people around me. Two, I just always remember that nobody wakes up humble, man. You don't wake up humble. You wake up every day and you got to chase humility. You know, you got to go after it. You don't wake up like, "Man, I feel humble today, boy." You know, you wake up like, "I'm the man out here." You know what I mean?

So you got to go pursue humility and be reminded that it's not about you. And plus, it's a balance, for real. Especially with me, and I know it's the same over there. When you trying to be the best and you still trying to stay humble, it's like you got to have almost like a healthy ego.

That's a balance you got to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to stay humble on the court. And it's sometimes hard to think like humility when my ego want to tell me like, "No, I'm better than every single person on the floor." You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So in your industry, it's so counter Jesus.

And you obviously are... You don't consider yourself a Christian rapper per se, but you follow Jesus. And how in your industry do you do that and not like lose yourself or not kind of adapt to the people you're around? How do you stay following Jesus? And do you have to like put parameters around you?

What do you do? Yeah. Everybody... It's funny we was talking about this, but it's like, I think everybody is a werewolf. You know what I mean? Like everybody got a full moon. And when that moon comes out, you're going to turn into an animal. You got to know what your full moon is.

So let's say, you know, you have an addictive personality and you know if you get to drinking, you're going to end up wilding out and going too far. So obviously your full moon is alcohol. So it's kind of like if you around it, you know, you might spaz. So it's like either A, don't put yourself in positions where you're going to be around it.

Or B, have somebody with you who knows how you get down and knows when you're around it, that it could take you down the wrong path. And so it's just always trying to be like that. I mean, obviously as a Christian, I believe that I have a power within me to like, you know, a supernatural power to keep me and hold me down and keep me from making bad decisions.

But I'm still a human. So, you know, part of it is knowing your own struggles, your own vices. And then two, count the cost. That's what I feel like a lot of people don't do. They don't count the cost. Like you could ruin a movement over a moment. You know what I'm saying?

And that just happens all the time. You got a whole movement going on and then one moment and it's over. And it's like, man, it's not worth it. You know what I mean? Nah, that's facts. But for me it's like you just said, is it an investment or is it taken away from what I'm trying to do?

But like you said, every human get in certain moods where it's like if you don't have certain parameters in place, you're going to do something messed up. So for me it's like I know like over time making the same mistakes, going through the same cycles, I know my vices now at this point.

So it's like I know what I got to stay away from. Like part of the reason I'm on social media is because I know like for me when I'm feeling down about whatever, a game or whatever, I'll run to social media, run to that attention. Whether that's women's attention or just the approval of others.

You know what I'm saying? To give me that boost. And that wasn't really something I was trying to do. So like for me it's just something I had to take out of my life. And I'll go back. Like after a while I'll get off of it, get back on it.

And it's cool for a little bit, but then like it creeps back in. It creeps back up. And to me social media has like a lot to do with the problems in this world. And it's tough because like it can be a positive thing. For sure. But like you said it's an investment for me.

Like I know myself. It's just one of my downfalls. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people's man. Like social media is rough because you know what I mean? It's kind of like this false sense of identity for a lot of folks. Myself included, you know what I mean?

So you got to fight against that all the time. I definitely know what you mean. Yeah, for sure. And going off of identity, I was telling her before we talked, your song "Identity" and your "Rebel" album, one of my favorite songs you talk about. You go back? My ears go back.

No, your "Rebel" album, that's my favorite album you ever dropped. And that song you just talk about how you try not to find your identity in the things or your career, your house, your success, whatever it is. You try to find your identity in God. But that's so much easier said than done, especially like when you're in the career or you're in these moments.

It's hard not to find your identity. For me, I know it is. When I have a bad game and I see how down I get, I know I'm not really finding my identity in God. A lot of times finding it through basketball. And it's hard because that's all I do all day.

But how do you think practically you can find your identity in God? Practically, a lot of it comes down to spending time with God. You know what I'm saying? Because the more time you spend with somebody, the more their perspective informs you. You know what I mean? You feel closer to them, more connected to them.

The less time I spend with God--and when I say spending time with God, it's just being still, being quiet, prayer, reading my Bible, whatever that looks like. The less time I spend with them, the easier it is for me to believe lies. The more time you spend with truth, the harder it is to believe lies.

You know what I mean? It's like when I'm spending more time with God, then it's harder to believe the lies. It's easier to believe, "Oh, yeah, this is where my purpose is. This is where my worth is." For me, some little things that I do, I take a dry erase marker sometimes, and I'll write verses on my mirror so when I wake up in the morning, I see it and I'm reminded.

You know what I mean? Just like, "All right, I'm God's workmanship creator for things he planned." So it's like, "All right, this is where my identity lies." Because like you said, everybody's on your head. Boy, people have been on my head for years about every little thing, and it weighs on you.

People treat you like a product instead of a person, and you have to remember, "You know what, man? I'm not who they say I am. I'm who God says I am," and just remind myself of that. Yeah, that's a big time because like you just were saying, it's about the input you put in.

I know me, and I know a lot of people. It's really hard to will yourself to be a good person, to will yourself to grow every day. But the more you can fill yourself up with good stuff, the more you can spend time in the Word, spend time around good people, have good conversations, that's the only way it will overflow out of you.

For so long for me, I was just trying to will myself to make the right decisions and will myself not to do certain things. But as a Christian, your life is kind of like you're always guilty because you're not going to be perfect, and when you're trying to will yourself to be better, better, better, then you trip, then you just back down in the dumps.

That was a big problem for me for a long time. That's kind of how I shaped my faith. It was a wrong perception of God because it was me trying to just not do stuff. Instead of spend time with Him, learn to love Him, and then do stuff out of that.

You know what I'm saying? You talk a lot about how you lost your religion and you found your faith, and I feel like that's something that I'm in the process of doing. What do you really mean when you say you lost your religion and found your faith? Religion, like you said, is when you are following rules in order to be accepted by God and accepted by people.

Right. Faith is what it takes--sorry, I'm popping up on my phone. No, faith is when you have to believe that there's nothing you could do to make God love you more or make God love you less. The work has already been done. And so I think about it like this.

It's like I went on a cruise one time, my first cruise I ever went on, and before I got on the cruise, I was excited. I was like, "Man, we're going to be on this cruise for five days." And then I started thinking to myself, "All right, I got to pack for this-- five days on this boat in the middle of the water." And I didn't know any better, so I'm packing snacks, all kind of stuff, because I'm like, "You know how the food might be?

I don't know what the food situation is going to be like." I'm just bringing all this stuff. And they was like, "You know you don't got to bring all this food." And I was like, "What you mean?" They said, "All the food is covered on the cost of the cruise.

It's already been paid for." And I think that's how we treat our faith is we try to add all this extra stuff to it instead of realizing, "No, the price has been paid. Go enjoy the food. Be free to enjoy what's going on. Stop trying to earn it. Stop trying to build up." And because you're an athlete, that's all you know.

You know if I work hard, I get results. But it's different with God. It's more like you get to work hard. You get to practice. You get to enjoy Him instead of like you have to. For sure. I feel like, too, like Christians, that makes a lot of Christians...

From the outside looking in, I feel like people really think Christians could be the most miserable people because they're not living in freedom. It's like they're in chains, but they're trying to do good, but they're not necessarily doing good. So it makes this perception like Christians is just like always feeling guilty, always down.

You know what I'm saying? And honestly, that could be the truth. And I think that's why the Bible is saying it's better to be hot or cold, either be all the way in the world doing everything the world do and be guilt-free, or be all the way for Jesus.

But I don't think by "all the way for Jesus," that means don't do anything wrong. It just means like... My dad brought up a quote the other day. It was a quote of someone that said, "Love God and then do what you want." But, like, really love God, and that's going to change what you want to do.

Big facts. Big facts. When you start with that, everything else after that, it makes sense. Love God, love your neighbour, and do whatever else you want. Because if you're loving God, you're not going to do stupid stuff that's stupid and harmful to you. You're going to do things that are helpful.

So how do you think the message in your music has changed as you've kind of come to this reality? Like, early on in your faith, you know, you talk about, like, you was probably more like me in the beginning. And now it's more you've come to this realisation. You just dropped this Restoration album.

You talk about that. How do you think that that has changed through your music? Like, what was you really talking about early on, and now what are you more trying to focus on? I think early on, man, you know, I was real self-righteous. Just real, like, look at how I move.

Look at how I do this. I don't do that. I don't do this. I don't do that. I don't do this. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do... You know, it was all about what I didn't do. Look at me. You know what I mean? Look at how I'm trying to follow God.

And even though I was trying to encourage people to push and to fight, you know, to be what God created them to be, I think what I didn't understand is that I was more devoted to my devotion than how devoted God was to me, you know what I mean?

So now I'm not so much, like, telling people to get like me. I'm telling people, "Look, I understand it's hard. "I understand that it's tough, "but you got to keep going, keep taking steps. "God is going to be with you in that whole process." Instead of, like, trying to will yourself to do it, like you were saying, it's leaning on God to be able to get you through.

Because that's another thing I don't want. When you have that culture of, like, get like me, when I'm making them type of songs, people love it, but then when they mess up, they don't want to come around you 'cause they feel like, "Oh, y'all going to look down on me.

"I don't want to... I can't be around them." But when you write from the standpoint of, like, "Hey, you know, there's mercy, there's goodness, "and there's another way to live, "and if you fail, it's OK, get back up, "'cause there's another opportunity for you to keep... "You know, restoration is available to you." And that's what I always want people to understand is, like, you know, God is always available for your restoration.

If you really want to change, He's here, no matter how bad it has been in the past. So I think that's how the music has changed. 'Cause I've made a lot of mistakes, too. When you make some mistakes, then it's like, "All right, yeah." Right. You know what I mean?

Like, "All right." - That's a fact. - Yeah. Yeah, that's a fact. So how do you relate to people? When you're in this world of, like, living in the rap world, you got a lot of friends who are living probably, like, way different than you, how do you relate to them to a point so that you can be an influence to them, but also stand out?

So, like, I know, you know, some pastors or some people that want to reach certain people that are living way different, but you want to, like, blend in a little bit, but still differ from them. - Yeah. - How do you do that? You know what's funny, man? People make it rocket science sometimes.

I think what folks don't understand is people will respect you for being yourself. You know what I mean? People think, like, you know, everybody got, like, a vegan friend, and it's like, you know they vegan. It doesn't mean you're not going to hang with them no more. You just know when y'all go out, it's like, "Oh, yeah, they ain't going to eat no burger." They might got Impossible Burgers, though, bro, if you want to get an Impossible Burger or something like that.

But they're not hiding the fact that they vegan. This is what they about, and this is how they move and they function. And I think that's where my freedom was found, is I'm going to be myself, you know? I'll be around you. "Oh, man, my bad, I'm smoking." Smoke?

I'm not going to, you know what I mean? And I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to condemn you for what you're doing, because at the end of the day, I'm not here to point out all the little things that you're doing wrong. I'm here to be a picture of how good and loving God is, you know what I'm saying, and how my relationship with him has made some things better in my life, you know, a different look at peace and joy.

So that's really... I'm just there to be a light in those dark places. So when I'm around folks, man, I just try to be real. I don't try to be holier-than-thou. I don't try to do any of that stuff. You know, I was in a studio with, you know, lots of rappers that people would be like, "What you doing hanging out with these folks?" But that's why they love me, is because I don't mind being around them.

You know what I mean? You think early on, like, with that, you had to be careful about how much time you spent early on in your walk with God, because you got to really be like, I'm not hung with the sinners, but it's because his faith was so strong.

But early on, like, in someone's faith walk, they might have got to be careful being around those dark places, because it might bring them down. You think, like, you evolved to that spot where nothing can shake you no more? Or you think it was always like... Nah, nah, nah, nah.

I had to... You know, you grow there. You grow into that space. Like, early on, I made a lot of mistakes because I thought, like you said, I was invincible. Like, I can do this. But now everybody's saying, man, they see you on the court, and they're like, "I can do that." You know, they're watching you.

They don't know how many hours of practice you put in. They don't know how many shots you get up when nobody's looking. They don't know how many plays you're memorizing. They don't know all of that. So a lot of times, people are like, "Oh, yeah, I could go to the BET Awards.

I'd be straighter. I could go hang with these people." And it's like, you don't know how much, you know, meditation and prayer I done put in, how much studying of my word I done put in, how much meditation I done put in, how much prayer I done put in, how much meditation I done put in, how much prayer I done put in, how much meditation I done put in, how much meditation I done put in, how much prayer I done put in, how much meditation I done put in, how much prayer I done put in, how much meditation I done put in, how much prayer I done put in, how much meditation I done put in, how much prayer I done put in, how much prayer I done put in, God put it on the earth, so like, as long as I'm not addicted to it and I'm moderate in it, what do you think of it?

Or like, even drinking. I know people that use drinking way too far, and they take it way too far. But like, you know, for me, it's not that. But like, all in all, what do you think about the drinking and the smoking? Yeah. You know, I gotta, I mean, here's the thing.

It first comes down to, are you, are you a Christian, right? 'Cause if you're not, then there's different, then you following a whole different set of beliefs and views and values. So if you say, yeah, I'm a follower of Jesus. Okay, cool. So then I can use the Bible as our kind of north star, in a sense, to talk about stuff.

Cool, alright, bet. So let's look at that then and see what that says for us. And what I understand is, you know, obviously, the Lord tells us to be sober-minded. And the idea of being sober-minded is just, man, are you always ready to withstand the darts the enemy's going to throw at you?

'Cause if you're drunk, you're not ready. You know what I'm saying? You're not ready. Them darts is coming and you out of there, champ. So it's, are you sober-minded? And, you know, all throughout the Bible it uses, you know, Jesus turned water into wine. It doesn't condemn alcohol. It condemns drunkenness, you know what I mean?

So it comes down to you being able to follow your convictions 'cause you got your own internal convictions about. And if you are doing something you feel is wrong, then you sinning against your own conscience in that moment. 'Cause you know you feel convicted about it, so you wrong.

You know, and Romans 14 talks about, you know, some people are weaker in this area, some people are not in this area. So when it comes to smoking, I feel like anything that enhances your ability to be a light and to represent the kingdom is, I don't have a problem with it, right?

If it's enhancing your ability to be a light and it's not a detriment, you know what I mean? It's not tearing you down, hurting you, hurting other people. It's not illegal. Cool. But at the same time, you gotta have your own barrier. You gotta know where that line is drawn for you.

I personally, I'm not a smoker. You know what I'm saying? But I have friends who are. I have friends who are Christians and they smoke. That's not a line I dabble with because I don't know. Like, alcohol, I know one shot, alright, two shots, and then it's a wrap.

Like, now I may be going past my limit. Smoking, it's like, I don't know how much took me past the limit. You know what I'm saying? So, but that's me. That's where I'm at with it. But at the end of the day, I think you just gotta abide by your conscience.

And then, I don't try to look for how far I can go before I'm too far. I try to look for how close to God I can be. And that's what I always try to strive for. Yeah, that's the idea. That's the ideal way. See how close you can be.

But I like what you said about the conscience because I've had this conversation with a lot of people and I think, like, there's a lot of things in the Bible that's black and white. Like, you can do this, you shouldn't do this. And there's, like, there is some gray areas.

And, like, as Christians, you might have a conviction that someone else don't have. And I don't really, I don't like when, like, Christians try to judge other people because, just because their convictions are different than another Christian's. Because, like, people struggle with different things. We talked about this before we started the interview.

But just, like, knowing yourself and knowing your own vices, what you would run to when you're feeling, like, down or something. Like, if that's something you would run to, I would probably stay away from it because, but, like, if it's just something that you're using in moderation, like, I feel like it's good.

Moderation is key, baby. Food, alcohol, sugar, moderation, baby. Shrooms, LSD. I don't know. That's eight hours, you're gone. You're out of there for eight hours. I don't know. Can you replicate your kingdom? I just want to try it one time. I'm cool. I'm actually really good on that. I don't want nothing controlling me for eight hours.

I'm good. Let me off the bus. Let me off the bus. I feel you on that. Man, last thing I really want to talk about was just your, like, how big you are into, like, the social justice and, like, that seems like that's something you're really into right now and pushing for right now.

How, what do you see in our world is the biggest way that you can help and the biggest issues in our world right now in that area? Yeah. Well, one is, man, we don't listen to each other, you know what I'm saying? At all. We don't listen to each other.

We don't hear each other's stories. We don't try to see where other people are coming from. We don't try to learn. We just want to talk over everybody. That's why I don't like Clubhouse, you know, the app. I heard about that. What is that app? It's basically like, it's social media but everybody's talking, you know what I mean?

So instead of, like, typing or posting pictures, you just talk. And it was dope at first, but then everybody just started talking over each other. Nobody's listening to each other. Everybody an expert in their own little spaces. And so if you're a learner, you know you can learn from people and learn from their perspectives.

But if you think you've got it all figured out, of course we're going to end up like this. Because now what you're saying is I have nothing to learn from you, you know what I mean? So even people I really disagree with, I just like to know why they believe what they believe.

You're just trying to learn. Yeah, exactly. So I can say, "Okay, I see where you're coming from. Have you considered this?" You know what I mean? And I think that creates a lot of problems. And so you know, when we don't listen to each other, we're not learning from each other and we're not learning what different issues are and different problems.

And when you're on the top, you know what I mean? Like, when you don't need people, and when I say need, like I'm making money. I live in a nice neighborhood, whatever. I don't need the people in the hood or in the projects. I don't need y'all. So I'm not listening to y'all.

Y'all don't have nothing to offer me. Y'all need to listen to me. I'm the one with the money and the nice house. And that's where the problem comes. Because they're trying to tell me what's going on in their world and I'm saying, "I know better than y'all. Y'all don't know what's going on." And I think that just creates a lot of tension.

You know what I'm saying? With race and ethnicities too. Nobody's listening. We're trying to tell y'all this. It's like you can't have an opinion no more. Nope. Or they'll cancel you. You canceled yourself. You took yourself off social media. Go right on, bro. Man, speaking of that, I remember that situation with George Floyd and how that went down and how heartbreaking that was.

And I remember seeing that video and being in tears, being devastated. And I remember tweeting, there was three tweets. The first one was just like, "Man, that's murder. You witnessed murder." The second one was like, "That's heartbreaking. It brings tears to my eyes watching that video." Something else. And then the third one was like, you know, because when you see stuff like that, you know, you go to the barber shop or wherever where there's a lot of black people and then they're all talking about that.

It can cause black people, when you see stuff like that, to have a hatred towards white people in a way. When I see stuff like that, that's kind of what starts to creep into your head no matter how hard you try not for it to. And so then I remember thinking like, "Man, but what would God say?" And I remember the third tweet I tweeted was, it was you know, as much as you pray for like George's family and how heartbreaking it is, also pray that God would change the hearts of these police officers that would even have the intent to do that.

And you know, that tweet, the first for a little while, you know, it was just my followers that seen it. And it was like like, "Man, that's big time, bro. Good perspective." Then some people saw it and were like, "Hold on, he's talking about pray for the officers that just murdered this dude?" Man, like, when I went there, then some famous people started having backlash on it.

And then after that, everybody talking crazy. And you know, everybody saw it and people was really hurt by it and not understanding what I said. And not understanding the tweets that I had tweeted prior to that. And you know, that was hurtful for me just because of how much that stuff affects me and what I see when I see that video.

But I just remember you hitting me. Do you kind of remember like what your thoughts was in that situation? What you were thinking? Some of it. I remember saying there's a few things that come to mind. One is just like, man, you know, it was the timing. You know what I'm saying?

It was just the timing. And you know, everyone's grieving George Floyd's death. And sometimes truth isn't received when it's received in a time where people aren't prepared to receive that. You know what I'm saying? And so it's kind of like you know, if your mom or dad or cousin got locked up and you're sad about it, but they really committed the crime.

And someone's like, yeah. You're not trying to hear nothing. It's like, you know, they're locked up. It was more of the timing. You know, obviously social media is the place where people are going to misunderstand you. And especially you coming from a Christian perspective where love is our North Star, it's really difficult.

Because when you try to promote love, some people hear acceptance. It's like, so you're saying, hey man, love your enemy. So I need to accept what they did to me? No, we're not saying accept it. We're saying love. Love doesn't tolerate injustice or accept it. Love still hates what's done, but it still tries to flesh out what it looks like to be consistent.

No, I definitely like the timing thing, I definitely was feeling that. If I could take it back, it probably would have been based on the timing. But at the time it was like, it was to my followers. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like, I didn't know the whole world was going to see that, Joanne.

Oh, they did. That's why I called you, because I was like, man, everybody's just going to say something and no one's going to... I hate that. Just talk to me. Talk to me. Don't come at me on social media. Yeah, so sometimes in Jesus' way, this happened back then, and I feel like it's even more prevalent now.

What Jesus would preach was so counter-cultural to what people thought was right. It was like, he was killed for it. He was killed for the message he was speaking. Even though it was about love, people don't know how to receive that. I feel like that's another thing wrong with the world today.

People don't even understand. It's almost like God said in the end days, good is going to become evil, and evil is going to become good. I feel like we're getting close to that almost. So, do you see that in this culture today? Oh yeah, absolutely. Without a shadow of a doubt.

You know, it's just a society now where I think we tolerate everything. When you tolerate everything, some things are not good. You know what I'm saying? They're wrong. When it's wrong, when it becomes wrong to put your foot down and say, "I don't agree with this," then, like you were saying, evil becomes good, and good becomes evil.

So, tolerating nonsense or foolishness becomes good. And then putting your foot down and saying, "Hey, we don't do this," becomes bad. And so, that's a unique place, man, where I think for me, there's a lot of things that obviously we all got a lot of learning to do, and unlearning to do.

So, I'm always trying to learn and unlearn. But I can follow a person even-- Like, when people disagree with me, I can follow a person who stands by what they believe in. At least I know what you stand on. You know what I mean? And so, I'm like, "All right, cool.

Now, can we have a discussion about it?" Because somebody may be looking at things from the wrong perspective. And when we can do that, then I'm like, "Good, but we not able to do that no more," which makes me feel like, "All right, well, here we go." We get into that time period, wars, rumors of wars.

I mean, Christ said-- He said when He was alive that they were in the last days, and the last days are coming. So, I think it's just a long time period of us being in the last days. I don't know when He's coming back, but I do know it's been consistent.

It's been consistent, but it ain't no way we're going to be here for more than, what, a hundred years. I think it's going to happen in our generation, to be honest. Well, we got some work to do then. You know what I'm saying? We got some promotion to do.

We need to start promoting this kingdom. How much of, you know, that, you know, good looked at as bad and bad looked at as good do you think comes from, like, the music industry and the rap culture? You know, like, multiple women now. If you were a dude who only talked to one girl and you only got one girl and you ain't cheating on her now, you kind of looked at it like a square these days.

Or like, you know, if you ain't doing this, now you looked at it as soft. If you ain't, you know, promoting violence or whatever, how much of that do you think? Because you in the music culture, how much do you think stems from that? Art imitates life that imitates art.

So I think there are some parts of it that are real, but then when people learn, "Oh, if I rap about this, I make money, so I'm going to talk about it a lot." And then the world says, "Oh, well, I need to imitate what I just saw more." You know what I mean?

So I think some of it is real and then music talks about what's real, but then when music does it, it glorifies it and then people really start imitating. Exactly. You know what I mean? So I think that's really what happens and I see it all the time where, I mean, even like myself, people just see something and they want that.

Like for me, being a Christian and then breaking all these barriers and, "Oh, you doing BET and you winning the Grammy." First rapper to do all this stuff. A lot of young Christians who rap saw that and that's what they went after. Just the awards and the limelight and the fame and stuff and not the heart that went behind it.

So yeah, you saw it all happen and you was like, "I need to be a part of it. I need to do this." And I think that's what happens a lot of times too. It's like some kid who never thought about being a gang member, never thought about none of that stuff, is listening to some Chicago Drills dudes and they like, "Yeah, that's what I'm on." And plus, it's way harder to make it the way you made it than it is to rap about what everybody else is rapping about.

Way harder, bro. I'll be jealous. I'm not going to lie to you. I've been telling people like, "You're so lyrically genius. If you was a secular artist, you would be all the way up there." Bro, it's so easy to get in the studio and freestyle about anything. Oh my gosh, I could go for hours.

I could make 50 million songs but to have to like, "Alright, I'm going to say this and I'm going to think through this." It's work, man. Is there any pressure that come with when people think of Christian rap, which you don't really like being put in a particular category.

Is there pressure being like, "Dude, you..." When they think of Lecrae, is there pressure to come with that? It's pressure at first and then you own it. At first it's pressure, then you own it and it becomes, "This is what I do." You know what I mean? It just becomes, "This is what I do." So let me make sure y'all get a good representation of this.

You know what I mean? Because it's what I do. It's like being on a court. Is it pressure being at the highest level of basketball? And it's like, "Sure." But then it's like, "Man, I've been doing it so long. I've been playing so many games. This is what I do now." You ain't nervous no more.

You said that in your music. You said, "I've been doing it so long." I don't get nervous. That's facts. I got one last question for you. Why you choose Jesus? Was there ever a period in time where you wanted to explore your faith? I went through this probably a year and a half, two years ago, where I didn't know what I believed.

I didn't know what I wanted to believe. Why you chose Jesus instead of anyone else? I'm definitely a thinker and I remember studying world religions before I was landing my plane on the Christian faith. And I've had rocky roads and doubts and all that type of stuff in the journey, but really what solidified it for me was as I looked at the world's religions, and you can go through them all, which I did.

I went through all the ones that I knew about anyway. When you talk to people and I have good friends who believe, who are Buddhists, who are Muslim, who are agnostic. I got some Rastafarian friends. When you talk to them all and you say, "Man, how do I get to God?

How do I get to Him?" All of them will tell you there's something you've got to do. There's something you've got to do. There's you've got to do this, and then do this, and then do this, or you've got to do this. It's a performance. Exactly. You've got to perform.

And I said, "Man, that's just hard." Who knows? No one knows. Everyone's dying like this. You know what I mean? I hope I get there. And Jesus is the only one that said, "All you've got to do is trust me." I performed already. So every other faith, you've got to reach up to try to get to God, but Christ reaches down and pulls you up to God.

I was like, "I'm done," because I know I'll never be perfect. Man, you know how messed up you are, right? That's what it was for me, too. I know how jacked up I am, so if every other religion you've got to perform and do enough to make it, Christianity is the only one where it's like, "Nah, someone came and saved you." That's the one I'm rocking with.

I'm rocking with it. And Christianity has almost become now, like we talked about this earlier, but it's almost become in this day and age, a little performance based. You know what I'm saying? But real Christianity, I mean, it's just about faith and believing. Not that weirdo stuff you see on TV, okay?

Not that weirdo stuff. We're talking authentic. Sometimes I'll just be saying, "I'm a believer." I don't even want to say, "I'm a Christian," because people are like, "Oh, you're like them." I'm a believer. You know what I'm saying? In this day and age, some people just talk about God, too.

They don't even mention what God. They say they believe in God. That's true. Or, I feel like a big movement these days, too, is the New Age type of religion, where you're kind of like almost your own God, like you're trying to become your own. Giving the universe all the credit.

Yeah. I ain't gonna lie. I had dabbled in it a little bit. I was going to the crystal store to get my little crystals. I heard they was going like whatever. That, too, it's like, why make yourself your own God? Trying to will yourself to be better. I think God puts all those things here for us to enjoy, and they're useful in their own ways.

You know what I mean? I agree with you. As far as meditation or yoga, all those things can be beneficial, but when it becomes God, then we're in trouble. I think even like you said, even astrology or something, there might really be some truth to them zodiac signs or a story told in the stars or whatever, but then when that becomes your basis for living in faith, that's when it becomes dangerous.

Right. I agree with you 100%. Yes, indeed. Well, I appreciate you. This has been dope. We talked about a lot of stuff, and I appreciate you, my guy. My guy. Respect. This episode was sponsored by Lemon Perfect.