Gray & Swoope Speak On Why They Created Their Critically Acclaimed Projects
Swoope’s second studio project, Sinema, did better than his first studio album, titled Wake Up, commercially. The “Same Team”-rapper doesn’t think Sinema will be his most successful project, but he genuinely loves it because he believes it was crafted well and impacted people. Swoope recently asked his Instagram followers why they create art and he answered that question himself in our interview.
“A young lady said that it helped her grow closer to Jesus, and I was like ‘This is why I create art. This is why I make music. This is the reason for the long nights making beats and the long days struggling through writers block just to make an album that may not sell a million of records, but it’s going to help someone grow closer to Jesus,’” Swoope said in his interview with JamTheHype.com.
“The number one answer to the question is to glorify the Lord via excellence. Glorifying the Lord is a very churchy cliché, that in most people’s minds brings up images of lifted hands or slow worship songs. I think the Lord is glorified best in excellence. I create to glorify the Lord. Secondly, in some way, shape, or form to bring people closer to Jesus…Jesus being the light of the world. Either explicitly talking about the light or implicitly talking about what the light helps you see. Glorify the Lord and help people grow closer to Jesus.”
“That pretty much sums up generally what I believe as well,” Christon Gray said in his JTH interview.
“I’ve always wanted to provide people with an honest look into my life as an example. I never wanted to portray myself as an artist who is a follower of Jesus to be some perfect person so the route I’ve taken and the music that I create is very honest and very vulnerable. A lot of times I wish I didn’t have to write the stuff that I write, but it is what I experienced. What I found [is that] it opened up a lot of release for people who struggle to really be themselves and admit their own faults, which by and large, what I’ve seen has created more of an honest approach to Jesus, from a lot of people’s realization of who they are and what they can’t do on their own. So, the more I’ve seen that happen, [the more] it has allowed me to grow while I create. It has allowed me to look over each song and album as journal entries and to kind of remember where I was when I wrote that stuff. It challenges me to grow. I do what I do purely for the same reasons that Swoope mentioned and also to provide an inspiration for other people to be themselves in that process.”
