Released this August in the midst of summer festivals, Twelve24 toured around the UK with their highly anticipated album Tell The Truth.
Based in Manchester, England, the three-piece band (Josh, Christina, Ryan) have been touring schools and festivals with their eclectic mix of Christ centred hip-pop. Originating from the US and UK, they met on the Genetik course, an academy for young evangelists run by Christian charity The Message Trust. Their first album, Better Words, was met with warm reception. Its purpose being to speak words of life to counteract the negative messages young people hear from the media on a regular basis. In another UK exclusive, Jam The Hype got the chance to interview the band on the impact of their music.
JTH: How has your previous album, Better Words, made an impact on young people listening to it?
T24: Better Words has served as a powerful tool to break off the lies that so many young people grow up hearing on a daily basis. They are told that they are ugly, no good, stupid, unloved, rejected, worthless… and this list goes on and on. We have seen God speak powerfully to youth of the UK; words of love, acceptance, and value opening so many doorways into kid’s lives.
One of our favourite Facebook messages to get back after we spend a week in schools aside from “thanks for coming to my school I became a Christian at your gig” has to be when kids message us and say that we made them actually think about God seriously for the first time and that they never knew that God actually loves them.”
JTH: What is the central message you want to share on Tell The Truth?
T24: ”The album is based around Romans 10:14:
“But how can they call on Him if they have not put their trust in Him? And how can they put their trust in Him if they have not heard of Him? And how can they hear of Him unless someone tells them?”
We wanted to make an honest, open statement to the world about who we are as Christians and mainly our experiences of what it’s like to follow Jesus. We wrote the album to be a deeper look into faith then Better Words was, but at the same time, we still wanted people with no experience of church or church culture to be able to listen to it and not feel alienated by what we say.
The whole idea behind giving the album away for free is because we wanted the thing that will most likely become most people’s first impression of Twelve24 to show that we are unmistakably Jesus Christ followers. So, we called the album Tell the Truth, because we were saying this is who we are and this is who we follow.”
