Lecrae: The Message

“My message, it's kingdom,” Lecrae tells Ebro on the latest episode of The Message. “And kingdom over empire. Egypt was an empire where it was okay with enslaving people, but the kingdom is about unifying and bringing people together. Right now it's a lot of empirical views out here in society where it's like, how can we step on and marginalise the people who don't get opportunities, instead of having a kingdom mindset where everybody can share and grow. I'm like, how do I raise the level of consciousness out here for these marginalised communities and provide some opportunities for folks?” Lecrae is best known as an MC whose faith-focused raps transcended their initial gospel classification, making him a force in the rap world at large, but his interest in bettering the many communities he’s a part of extends well beyond the stage. Over the course of his career, he’s penned op-eds related to social justice for Billboard magazine, was a partner in 2013’s This Is Fatherhood initiative and spoke at Yale University about bridging the racial divide in America. For his The Message playlist, Lecrae chose songs from MCs like Nipsey Hussle, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West, all of whom he feels have used their gifts to open the eyes of their fans to something bigger than the groove. “good kid, m.A.A.d city, that's my story in a lot of ways,” Lecrae says. “I was always meant to be a person who is concerned about the people. I was always meant to be a thinker. I was always meant to do more. There was no outlet for that to grow and mature, and that stuff was stripped away from our community. But I was always a good kid in the sense of there was so much good in me in this environment, and you would have never known was it not for rap.”