From Gangsta to Godly: T-Bone
Albums:
The Fighting Temptations (Soundtrack) (2003) Gospelalphamegafunkyboogiediscomusic (2002) The Boneyard Box Set (2001) The Last Street Preacha (2000) History Of A Hoodlum (1997) The Hoodlum’s Testimony (1995) Tha Life Of A Hoodlum (1993) Redeemed Hoodlum (1991)
What type of revolution would you like to see in Christianity in 2004?
I’d like to see a lot more unity on the Christian side, but talking as far as what I’m really about I’m looking more for a revolution in hip hop music in general. I’ve been in the Christian and gospel market for about fifteen years now and I feel like I’ve moved on from that and I’m doing a lot more mainstream stuff. I think that my vision and what God has placed inside of me now isn’t even a longing for Christian music to be revolutionized. When I came into the game fifteen years ago “Redeemed Hoodlum” was a revolutionary moment. It was the first real street record to ever be dropped in Christian music and it changed around a lot of stuff, but now with the movies opening up doors and these different deals I feel like hip hop in general needs a change and I feel like God is calling me to be that man to be the revolutionary. I don’t really look at the gospel market as my competition anymore, now I’m trying take the word of Christ out to the masses. I just listen to hip hop music in general and its like everybody has been spitting the same thing for so long about money, about women, about pimping, about thugging. How many more guys are these people gonna murder so for me I really what to see a change happen in hip hop. I want to be able to come out and show people you can lift up the name of God and be positive, make great music and be successful without all of that negative stuff. Let these kids know you don’t have to sell drugs or be a pimp and sleep with a million girls to have money and be successful. I’ve broadened the way I used to think because before it was just in Christian music, but you know what its time take over the world and take this to the masses.
That’s interesting to hear because it seemed to me the artists that put themselves in the Christian music genre secluded themselves from secular music. What pushed you to say let me switch over because like you said you’ve been doing it for a minute.
The reason is because I have been doing this for so long. I don’t think you’re gonna get any other Christian or gospel rapper that has been doing this for as long as I have. The thing is after fifteen years that I’ve been making full on Christian records and putting Jesus in every other line I realized as long as you do that you’re going to only reach so many people. People can’t really argue with me because I’m living proof. So the thing is there has to come a time where I realize if I want to be able to reach the world I have to do it on a different level. The lord began opening up all these doors on the mainstream side and I said now is the time to take the word to the masses. I feel if you’re good at what you do people don’t care what you’re talking about. The Fighting Temptations was kinda like a test and I felt for the past maybe three years I was making these records I wasn’t even focused on being on the Christian side. For so many years I felt like I was wasting my time because I feel like I can hang with the best of them and rhyme better than 90% of the rappers out there. I feel like I’m still reaching the same 200,000 – 300,000 people and I need to go out and reach the masses for Christ. The lord opened up the door for the Fighting Temptations and people went hysterical over the stuff that I did on there and that’s when I felt that’s when God gave me the green light and really gave me a burden to want to reach the world now. Jesus said a person in good health is in no need of a physician, its those that are sick so we have to get outside the four walls of the church and stop saying I have to make this music for Christians or our people. Our music is supposed to be evangelistic, at least my music because I’m speaking for myself. T-Bone’s music is evangelistic. I’m not about keeping it in church and just going to churches and just rocking churches or Christian events and seminars. I need to go out and reach the world because they’re the ones that are on there way to hell. If we have the answer and we’re saved then praise God, now lets move on an tell somebody else. I know when I was lost had it not been for somebody having enough love and God putting enough grace on them to say go out and reach that young thug then I’d be in the same position I was in twelve years ago. I thank God that somebody did that and that’s what I’m called to do, to go out and reach that other T-Bone, that kid that was just like me that drug dealer or gang banger. Christ didn’t just stay in the temple, he went out and talked to the tax collectors, the murderers and the prostitutes. That’s what we’re supposed to do.
I wanted to touch a little bit on the gang activity. Was there one situation that scared you that brought you over to Christianity or was it a calling you had?
Well for me being from California and all the crazy gang stuff we were involved in, one of my best friends was actually shot twice once in his back and once in his chest in a drive by. He laid on the ground twitching and everybody was yelling Ralphie get up and the thing that hit me was the last words he had to say was just tell everyone to wear red at my funeral. That’s what he died for and he felt it was an honor for him to die for this color, for this gang. When I was thirteen years old my parents had gotten saved and become pastors so I always had that conviction in me, yet I was doing all these wild things with my boys. My sister got met amphetamine factories all across California, she had 150 girls under her as a gang leader and with all this craziness going on it was like there has got to be more to life than this. I either could continue to stay on this path and end up like all my friends, dead or locked up, or I can make a change. So I was really at a point where I was tired in life and I went to my father’s church and it was a Spanish church and there was a guy that came from Nicaragua to speak. It was one of those sermons where it’s like he is reading a book on your life and knows exactly what you are going through and he is addressing every incident that is happening in your life like a movie. It really just touched me and when he said if you want to know who God is come up to this alter I got up and hit that alter and ever since then that’s when I say I became a redeemed hoodlum. I fell down on my knees, I never felt so much love and so much peace, and from that day forward it was my goal to reach the other T-Bone’s out there. I felt like God gave me a ministry right there because I already had a burden when my friend got shot. That’s how I got into that whole thing. As far as the music goes I was always done hip hop music I was doing parties and clubs and after I got saved I realized there was nothing I could really listen too. The gospel music was cool, but that’s not where I was at, I’m from the streets and I listen to hip hop music. So there were like maybe three or four groups out there and they were corny. It was boring, corny, unartistic and untalented and I was like I can’t listen to this. I’m from the Bay area, I grew up buying CDs from Too Short and E-40 out of their trunk. I grew up listening to N.W.A and KRS-ONE and I was like this is the imitation, these dudes were trying to be these guys but I couldn’t be fooled. A lot of kids in the church had been fooled for years because they didn’t know what real hip hop was, but me being raised in it I knew it wasn’t the real deal. There was something missing and I couldn’t listen to it. I started writing rhymes and one of my boys said why don’t you come do these rhymes at my church and I was like nah. There wasn’t even a word for gospel hip hop at the time, but one of my boys, Dave Deon, kept begging me and finally pushed me into doing it. I went and I did it and the first thing that hit me was that all boys from the gang and the neighborhood showed up and the first thing that it showed me was that this music drew people into a church that would never walk into a church. My boys came out to support me and they loved my music and loved my style and I knew those guys had never stepped in a church before. That night I did three songs, the crowd went crazy, my boys were touched, the minister came up and shared the word and I was able to lead about four of my best friends to the lord that night. From that day forward when you are apart of someone being saved it’s like crack because you get hooked.
