First major Christian all-urban tour to feature Out Of Eden, GRITS and others

PUBLICIST Melissa Campbell recently handled tour press for the first major Christian all-urban tour, headlined by Gotee artists Out Of Eden, GRITS and Knowdaverbs. She noted that some of the genre's potential success may come because of a backlash from the vulgarity and sexual explicitness of general market rap acts. "The urban stations have been supportive of the tour as well as many Christian stations," Campbell said. "It feels like a turning point to me for hip hop.

What I'm hearing from writers (covering the tour) is that their readers just really want to hear good, clean hip hop." The tour, which ran from February through to April, was seeing crowds of between 1,500 and 2,300 every night, depending on the venue. Campbell said Gotee was hoping to do more dates in the autumn.

While labels are excited about the onslaught of new artists and releases, they are also hesitant due to the Christian market's previous lack of reception to the genre. "The sociology of who buys 'Christian' [music] makes it much more difficult to sell (hip hop] music that is perceived as 'on the edge'," said Squint's Dave Palmer. "We need a few breakout artists who can convince a musically conservative audience they like rap."

"Many times adults relate rap and hip hop music to violence and vulgarity," said Ray Majoran, editor of hip-hopzone.com. "While that may be the case for the secular marketplace, it is quite the opposite when it comes to the Christian marketplace."

In Britain, holy hip hop continues to be largely ignored by the Christian record companies, despite hugely popular World Wide message Tribe always featuring rap as an element in their pop dance mix. However, as an underground, Christian hip hop, particularly around London and Birmingham, has flourished. Acts like G.I.F.T.E.D., Green Jade, SNL, The Blessed man and Michaelis Constant have recently clocked up well-received independent releases.