London hip-hop crew 29TH CHAPTER are going all out to take the Jesus message into schools. Tony Cummings talked to the righteous rappers.

TC: Well, thank you guys for talking to me. I think I've got a lot to think about here. I just want to go round to each of you and just give me a little bit individually of your vision and where you hope and believe God will be taking you in the coming months and years.

NAVIGATOR: "My heart really is for young people, especially for men as well. God's just put those two things on my heart, those groups of people and I don't know where God will take me in the future, but I just know my heart is for young people. I really desire just to see a lot of young people changed and developed and discipled as Christians with real character. So that's partly my heart. I've been saved from a young age, I became a Christian when I was nine years old and I was blessed to have parents that really sowed a Christian lifestlye that was real into my life and I never saw a hypocritical life, or it wasn't rammed down my throat. That was a blessing to me and I think that God's just set me apart for a particular calling, particularly to develop character and to encourage people to have that character, to really live a set apart life for Christ. I don't know where God will take me but those are the things that are on my heart."

GLADIATOR: "Basically I just want to grow in intimacy with Jesus, I just want to walk in a relationship with him and just get deeper with him and I want to live a transparent lifestyle. I want to be the same person on a stage and I want to be the same person in a school in a corner ministering to a young boy, or a young girl, or a group of kids. I just want to live a transparent lifestyle of integrity and represent Jesus. And I have a desire from my heart just to go places where people don't want to go. You know, I want God to take me personally and to take this crew into places that people don't want to go. I want to walk on foundations that haven't been touched yet, like in Romans when Peter said he wants to go places that haven't yet heard the Gospel, that's my heart. I want to be the 29th Chapter in my lifestyle as a person, and be the 29th Chapter with the crew and go to places where people don't want to go. I want to eat up the ground and just go places and minister this message of life to people who haven't heard it yet and haven't heard it in the realist form."

TC: When Cross Rhythms started, even before the first issue of the magazine came out, I went to America and I interviewed a rapper there called D-boy Rodriguez and D-boy said something very similar, he believed he needed to be a witness in places where people didn't want to go. A few months after he gave that interview he was killed in a drive-by shooting on the streets of San Diego. If you really want to go to places where people don't want to go, there are housing estates, there are places where there is almost that same level of danger today, isn't there? So, you weigh those words very carefully before you say them?

GLADIATOR: "Yeah man, I weigh them carefully, but I say them because you only live once. This is my time to make a difference, this is my moment to be a history maker, this is my calling and people say that when you pray that prayer, 'God, break my heart.' be ready 'cos God will break your heart. Well I'm a man, I'm 21 years old now and I consider myself a young man and I consider myself at the age where I'm prepared to pray that prayer and live that prayer, because you know Jesus came to the cross and he wrestled with his calling to die and he saw through and he did it, and he gave a lifetime, a generation of young people and humanity a second chance - and I see it the same way. I pray that prayer because I see that we all have a second chance and that's Jesus. If I don't give people that opportunity, if I begin to lose value for one human soul then I've lost the plot. We need to realise the every soul is important, every single soul and the minute we get a grasp of that and understand that, that's when our hearts will truly burn, that's when we'll truly have a passion - when we realise that Jesus died for every soul. So we need to have a heart for every single soul, never lose the value for one person or 15,000 in Festival: Manchester."

DANGEROUS: "I think, personally speaking, in terms of vision and what God's put on my heart it's really two things that until recent years haven't really equated, and the first was that I come from a line of missionaries, in terms of my family. Both my parents were missionaries, they met on the mission field and a lot of my family are involved in that kind of work and so from a young age I really admired that. But also from a young age I was involved with music, heavily. That was really my heart, that's always been my hobby and in more recent years has also been my job. It's the way that I worship and the way that I communicate personally with God. Only in recent years I suddenly realised that these two things can be equated, and with that little story I was saying about the girl who gave her life purely through listening to the CD, that's really where my heart is. I remember sitting in a sermon, I think it was J John said something that really spoke to my heart, he said a missionary isn't someone who crosses the sea, but it's somebody who sees the cross. It may be a cheesy analogy to some people but really there's a great truth in that. I believe that as a Christian we are called to be missionaries. It doesn't necessarily mean that we'd go to Gambia or India, and respect to the people that do that, but also there's a mission field right here. You know, where you're at whether you're in the UK or in Europe or wherever you are there's a mission field on the very ground that you walk. I really believe that God's gonna use my music, not only for people to enjoy but also that it's going to be a source of healing and a source of salvation. I've had that prophetically over me as well, so I believe and I really seek God for integrity as a man and as a Christian in what I do so that I can be transparent, stand before him and just say 'Yeah'. My music is purely to glorify God, as much as I enjoy it."

MR PRINCE: "For me my vision for the future is, in terms of 29, is for us to take this full time thing to the schools of the UK. My heart is to see young people challenged, transformed, developed, released - to see the Gospel taken into the schools of, not just London, but the UK as a whole in a powerful way. My vision is to see urban arts, hip-hop, R&B, dance, music production, rap, break - anything, any media art that can be used to take the Gospel to a young generation that is way off the plot, that is interested in seemingly nothing but video games and is seemingly losing its way. My vision is just to take the Gospel message into schools using those urban arts and to see a generation of young people changed and transformed. Our heart is for young people to get the same vision that we have, the same vision of Jesus, the same vision of a God who is powerful and not only able to meet their needs, but to challenge and transform their lives and the lives of their friends and their peers. That's my vision, that's my heart, that's where 29 is going, that's what it's about baby!

"It just so happens that on 29th November we have the launch of New School, an event called UK Urban Vibe, it's in West London and we've got ourselves playing, the Tribe will be down there bangin' some hits from 'Raise Your Game'. We've also got a house and garage crew called AFG Nexus and also a young B-boy, a beat-boxer, rapper who's on the way up, his name is Bemused. So on the 29th November at Ealing Christian Centre in London we've got UK Urban Vibe - it's the fourth one. It's advertised in this issue of Cross Rhythms magazine, you could check it out and we'd love to see anybody who supports 29. Just come down, just come vibe with us - it's gonna be an amazing event. We've got some top artists, it's just gonna be loads and loads and loads of fun, so if you're about come and check it out. You can get more details on the 29 website."

TC: Thank you very much indeed brothers, bless you.