Rapper and hip-hop artist, Lecrae, released his fourth album, “Gravity”, September 4th. The album received very positive feedback, topping the charts on iTunes. It also gained an explosive amount of reviews, nearing 3,000 in just 2 days.

Most of this information probably won’t come as a surprise for a lot of people. Rap is a popular genre, and there’s always at least a few hip-hop albums constantly topping the charts. But Lecrae brings something unique to the table: his music is 100 % Christian.

Its origin dating back to the ‘80’s, Christian rap isn’t completely new to the music industry, when rap itself was becoming popular. But it wasn’t until recent years that the genre really took off with other Christian rappers such as Trip Lee, Tedashii, Flame, and many more.

Lecrae has been in the industry for years, but this is the first time in iTunes history that a Christian rap artist’s album has made it into the top 10. His music breaks the mold for both traditional church music and rap/ hip-hop genres. It doesn’t contain slow-playing piano music or soulful gospel choirs. Neither do his lyrics contain the usual themes of rap music like cuss words, sexual references, and lust for money.

For a lot of Christian rappers, their main goal is to reach today’s youth to bring the message and teachings of the bible through the most popular genre of music of today. Whether it has affected the masses yet is hard to say, but what’s certain is that this once underground genre is now more main-stream than ever before.