I don’t live in a metropolitan area. Fortunately, I do live a stone’s throw from Liberty University, a college that will occasionally host rappers. When I saw that Humble Beast artist Propaganda was coming to the school, my wife, kids, and I made the road trip to experience our first concert as a family.

I’m so glad we did.

Here are five reasons why:

  1. Live music, when done well, is so much better. I grew up the hip-hop nerd who mostly analyzed and memorized every lyric to every song of my favorite artists. The “experience” didn’t mean much to me. All I needed was my room, my tapes, and my boom box. However, Prop’s show has a great energy to it, an energy you can’t fully experience through a disc. He was the only performer, but he did a full 75-minute set with great energy and clarity. It was impressive.
  2. It’s great to see the gospel proclaimed in my cultural context. I grew up fully immersed in hip-hop culture. I’m thankful to attend a healthy, gospel-proclaiming church in my city, but it’s not necessarily in my exact cultural context. It was refreshing for my wife and me – and eye opening for our kids – to actually see the gospel proclaimed in a hip-hop context and not just hearing it on an iPod.
  3. The spoken word element adds an amazing dynamic. Growing up on east coast hip-hop, words meant everything. I would have fallen in love with hip-hop without beats. I love how powerfully Propaganda can control a room when the music’s off. He uses every part of his being – breath control, facial expressions, enunciation of certain words, etc. – to bring words to life through poetry.
  4. I learned the story behind the story. At the concert, Prop shared that one of my personal favorites, “Dig,” was also one of his personal favorites. In addition, he shared that the song’s place in the chronology of songs made by the Humble Beast label was a big reason for his affection for the song. I love learning the story behind songs. He also said that his lyric on Lecrae’s “Hands Up” about “arenas full of white kids all singing along make convos in the green room fill with awkward pauses,” was actually inspired by an overwhelmingly positive response to a previous visit to Liberty University.
  5. You get so much more of the artist at a concert. I grew up following Cross Movement all around the state of Virginia. I was just as eager to hear what they said between songs, as I was to hear the actual songs. Here were guys actually living out the gospel in the urban context. To this day, hearing the heart of the artist is still one of my favorite parts of each show. During his show at Liberty, Propaganda addressed America’s current racial tension in a powerful way, citing Martin Luther King Jr. and pleading for Christ-like compassion and a willingness to listen from both sides. He also had thoughtful insights into immigration as well. If my kids got nothing else from the concert, I hope those words resonated deeply.

Jam The Hype wants to hear from you. What concert has had the most impact on you?