Rap Artist Lecrae Navigates Injustice & Trauma With Love & Hip-Hop

Narrator:  Hi everybody, my name is Remy. Welcome to the For the Love Podcast, with your host Jen Hatmaker, my mom. She writes books and speaks to crowds. But she mostly loves talking to amazing people every week on this podcast. Thanks for listening! We hope you enjoy the show.

Jen:  Hey, everybody. Jen Hatmaker here, your hostess of the For the Love Podcast. Welcome to the show.

All right. I’m going to say this straight up: I am super sad to end this series. We’ve been in For the Love of Faith Groundbreakers, and we’ve been talking to some of the smartest, bravest leaders who are walking new roads and showing us so many amazing ways to look at God, to look at ourselves. I’m just, I have learned so much, and I’ve been so engaged with these leaders and thinkers. You have too, by the way. Your feedback to us on this series is like through the roof. So thank you for letting us know like what’s resonating with you and who you love and what you’re learning. Like, we live for that feedback, you guys. Thank you for telling us that. That’s so helpful for us in the future.

But this is our last episode in the series, and let’s just say we are going out on a high note here. We are super lucky to have on the show today Lecrae Moore, you know. Most of us simply know him as Lecrae, and he is this prolific writer and rapper and activist and this voice of conscience.

He has probably one of the most unique trajectories of any artist I’ve ever seen. He manages to fuse together some of the most thoughtful lyrics and sounds with his faith. And the result is just, I mean, it is so amazing. Obviously his albums have produced an entire shelf of awards, two of which are called GRAMMYs, you may have heard of those. Watched him soar on Jimmy Fallon, that was so much fun.

And then, we’re going to talk a lot about this, I’ve just been so moved by a lot of his op-ed articles and really thoughtful posts across social media about the disastrous effects of systemic racism. I mean, he is really using his voice in powerful ways. He’s also a really proud husband and father of three. And we’re going to hear all about that.

And look, let me just tell you something: I cannot impress my kids ever. They’re they’re uninterested in virtually everything I put my hand to. But right after I finished this interview with Lecrae, my son Ben came in, he had just gotten off the bus and I still had my headphones on. And he said, “Who’d you interview?” And I was like, “Well, as a matter of fact, I just got off the phone with Lecrae.” And he was like, “Bro!” So I just want to say that I earned points today in my own home because I got to talk to one of my son’s artistic heroes.

Here’s what you’re gonna find out when you hear this interview. He is amazing. Like we go in, you guys, we’re going in. We’re going in on some hard things, some hard conversations. We’re going to talk about racism and white supremacy. We’re going to talk about artistry and creativity. We’re going to talk about depression and pulling forward. So it’s all in here. This is a fabulous, fabulous conversation, and I am so happy to bring it to you.

So welcome the brilliant and the talented and the wonderful Lecrae.

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Jen: Okay so, Lecrae! Welcome to the For the Love Podcast. I’m so happy to meet you finally.

Lecrae: No, I sincerely like, I mean I just know you from social media, but that’s enough for me.

Jen: I know. We have tons of friends in common, we have tons of crossover. And it just seems unfair that it’s taken this long to finally connect, but I’m so pumped to have you on this show. Thank you for saying “yes” to this invitation and squeezing it into the middle of your road trip.

Where are you by the way, where are you on the road?

Lecrae: Coming from Atlanta to North Carolina, and back to Atlanta.

Jen: Nice. A little spring in the Southeast, that’s a good time to do it.

Lecrae: It’s been great.

Jen: My listeners know who you are, and I filled in the rest of them with a little bit about you and your story. But if you’ll just sort of indulge me, I wonder if we can roll it back to the beginning for a minute and trace your path forward, because you have a pretty powerful story that I want everybody to hear.

Can you tell my listeners just a little bit about your earliest years, where you’re from, who was in your family, and what life was like when you were little?

Lecrae: Yeah, so yeah, I was born in Houston, Texas. My family is originally from Houston, Texas, in a little area called Third Ward, which is not the same as it was. It’s quickly become a gentrified area, so if you ever go visit it, it probably won’t look like it did then.

But we moved around as a kid. My mom and my dad did not stay together, and so she was a single parent. And we moved just based off of the family that could support us at the time, and so we ended up in Denver and San Diego.

It was a journey, living in a single-parent home. My mom was doing the best that she could. Of course I was introduced to masculinity and manhood from a lot of family and friends who were teenagers, honestly, 19 and 20 years old. They were involved in gangs and drugs and the whole nine.

But I had a very resilient mom who was passionate about education and really wanted me to read and get invested into understanding who I was as a young black man in America. She did the best that she could possibly do to make sure that that happened.

Yeah, it’s been an amazing journey.  I mean that’s the short version.

Jen: Were there any indications back then that you’d be doing what you are doing today?

Lecrae: No. No, no, no, not at all. I mean, I was rapping, I was making music, but I never would have imagined that I would have made it to this level, going down the roads that I was going down. That’s been pretty amazing.

Jen: Yeah, it’s pretty amazing to watch.

I think one of your strengths—and you have a lot—is the way that you are able to view the world through multiple lenses that are all real and all true at the same time. A man, a husband and dad, African American, a Christian in America right now. You’re this really unique blend of cultures and experiences. I wonder, I’m curious, where is the place or is there a place where you feel like this, “I’m home. This is the place I’m home.”

Lecrae: I don’t know, that’s a great question.

Jen: I mean you just have so much crossover and some of it’s not conflicting, but it’s definitely different.

Lecrae: Yeah. You know what, I would say I’m really home in a multitude of different places.

I don’t know. So when I’m thinking through home, I think through places with people like yourself where you’re understanding different vantage points of being a Christian, but then also navigating the world and navigating culture, in the unique ways that we have to navigate culture.

Of course then hip-hop culture doesn’t quite understand who I am as a Christian, but they understand the world that I come from and appreciate artistically. That’s just a unique kind of dynamic.

Jen: It is. I mean, you’re in a rare category, where at any given moment, somebody in the room doesn’t quite get you all the way. They get half of you or they get part of you, and you really thread the needle with a lot of integrity. It’s not easy. I think the call on your life and the places that you are in, it’s not an easy row to hoe, and it’s really been fascinating to watch you do it.

One thing that you’ve said, you said that you, “wanted to reclaim the humanity of hip hop, in light of your faith, take it back to its roots and use it as a tool for social change.” That’s something that you said and you’ve got this very brilliant, brilliant TEDx talk on this topic.

Listeners, I’m going to link to it because it is the best 18 minutes you’re going to spend on the Internet.

In that talk, you show how our cultural lenses color the way we look at practically everything, which goes for rap as well. What you said was that, “While so much of rap maybe today, glorifies criminal culture and misogyny, it wasn’t always that way.”

I wonder if you can tell us your take on the roots of the genre, and what it is specifically that you are looking to reclaim, and how you have been able to use it as a tool for social change in your world in your sphere of influence?

Lecrae: Yeah, well hip-hop music obviously is birthed out of disenfranchised or marginalized black and Hispanic kids in New York City, and it became like the griots—the voices of a community—because the news channels would not talk about the things going on in their communities. This became a way of talking across communities, almost like the beating of a drum to communicate across communities.

When you began to listen to the music, maybe you live in Los Angeles but you’re hearing these people talk about things in New York, and you’re like, “Okay, this is similar to what I dealt with and what I was experiencing.” You’re able to see what’s happening in these different cultures, and you can speak to it. And that’s what I’ve been able to do is say, “Hey, let me speak to the things that are going on, specifically for you in culture.”

Jen: Yeah, and you have and you’ve pioneered, really, I mean that’s what you’ve done and I know there are younger artists coming behind you in your wake. You’ve been some sort of lead blocker to essentially create a genre, which is, it’s no small feat to lay paver stones in the wilderness. Just to say, “I’m going to lay this down. It wasn’t here, but I’m going to put it down.” It’s been really exciting to watch how much enthusiasm just gathers around you and your music and your message.

Jen: Over the past few years I have deeply, not just admired, but just related to the way that you’ve used your voice to call out racial injustice and just this lingering white supremacy in our culture.

You’ve written several op-eds in Billboard, every one of them poignant and well written. You’re just a really gifted writer. But the one that you wrote about the shooting at Mother Emanuel was maybe one of the most eloquently written breakdowns of systemic racism in the U.S. I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot.

It’s a hard conversation to have. I’m thinking about you specifically with what is largely, for you, a white audience, unaccustomed to hearing that narrative, to hearing that call out, to hearing that push against a culture that has always served them and centered on them.

I wonder if you could talk for a minute about what that has been like for you, for the past few years? I’ve been watching as you’ve been raising your voice to talk about racial inequality, and it seemed to me you just could not. It just seemed like you cannot stay silent, you just were compelled to use your influence and your voice.

I wonder what that has been like for you, and has that created any change in your audience demo, or maybe even what they believe about God and themselves? I don’t know.

Lecrae: Oh yeah, okay. We’re diving off the deep end here now.

Jen: Lets go, yeah.

Lecrae: Yeah, so without realizing it, I, just being a Christian in this unique space, I started off speaking to a majority of black spaces. In those spaces people found out, “Oh, there’s a guy and he’s rapping and he’s talking about God and faith.”

Then I was brought to some more conservative white Christian spaces. People, we just have a tendency to feel as if we own individuals, this kind of like, “Oh, Tim Tebow, that’s our guy.” You know what I mean? And so, people began to feel like, “Hey, you know, because we’re fans of yours or we’ve brought you out, like, you’re our guy.”

And then what began to happen is things started happening in society where though I’m maneuvering and navigating in both black and conservative white Christian spaces, at the end of the day, I’m a black man from inner-city America. So when Trayvon Martin was killed, it affected me.

And I wasn’t raised in a church. I wasn’t raised in a Christian home or anything like this. So when I saw those particular things, I just assumed all Christians felt the way I felt and said, “Oh, this is sad that this kid . . . ” You know, I didn’t know there were . . .  the church was, there were different political sects, and I didn’t understand any of that.

So I just spoke out about what I saw, and I was bombasted. I was met with this visceral kind of, like, “You know, he should have done this.”

I was like, “Wait a minute. We’re just talking about my sadness for someone dying. I don’t understand. We’re talking about my cry for justice. I don’t understand.”

And that took me back. I was a little confused and perplexed because I just thought that this whole Christian thing was a safe place, and everyone’s family, and everyone’s unified.

And so as I kept journeying down that road, I kept being more vocal about and I saw and I learned, Oh, people are really ignorant to the issues going on in ethnic communities. And then I just said, I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the ignorant and kind of complicit racism or pushback. And I just had to start speaking out against it, because I felt like that’s what God called me to do.

Jen: He did. And it was beautiful, and it was also hard to watch, because you were deeply challenged. And it’s tricky, isn’t it, when that’s your industry because that butters your bread. And so, I mean, you know, I understand this. I too have walked into areas of injustice at the peril of my own career, and you just can’t, there just comes a point where you just can’t do anything else. There’s no way, it’s impossible to stay on the sidelines.

Do you feel like that has altered your fan base at all? Can you tell?

Lecrae: Yeah, I mean, there was definitely . . . there was a huge drop off initially. I could do a show in Philadelphia with 1500 people, and then I would show up during this time period and there were 300 people.

But then people outside of that conservative Christian circle who cared about justice or who just cared about issues of societal change started to get behind me and follow me. And it really helped me see the world is much bigger than the people who are paying to bring me out to do some of these events and shows. And so my audience diversified, greatly. I definitely lost quite a bit of fanfare, but I diversified.

Jen: I know the Christian audience is a fickle thing. And it doesn’t pay to adjust our dials to keep it, or please it, or appease it. And so there’s a bit of a comfort in it. At the end of the day, just do the right thing, just use your voice well. Steward it well and then let the chips fall where they may. To me, there’s a great relief in it. Even though there’s loss built into it. There’s, in my opinion, more gain than loss.

And I want to read a line that you wrote that has really stayed with me. You said, “Many times we’d rather ignore the brokenness of our country, which then leads to limping because we’ve not tended to a serious wound.” It’s pretty profound. And I’m wondering if you can roll that out a little bit more for us.

Lecrae: Yeah. Well, I think, once we begin to marry nationalism with faith, we begin to lose the essence of faith. We begin to lose the essence of love and the tenants of what we believe, because now we’re concerned with winning and by any means necessary. And so you stop considering the immigrant. You stop considering anyone who gets in the way of what you believe is in the best interest of the nation, let alone, like, forgetting about what God says is in the best interest for us as humanity.

Jen: That’s good.

Lecrae: What ends up happening is you begin to step on people and hurt people because you’re looking through this narrow lens. I honestly believe that’s what happened during the years of chattel slavery was that’s the culture was just moving and saying, “Hey, this is what’s beneficial for us as white southerners and for us to win. And so we can disregard what the Bible may say about loving people and about how we would treat people and people being image bearers, because we’re more concerned about winning as a nation and not concerned about people.” And so you leave the whole nation broken, you leave us splintered, and you leave us divided.

Jen: Well, absolutely, I mean, preach that word everywhere you go. The impulse remains. It’s a really easy sleight of hand for the white community to just divorce our current experience from our cultural history, our national history. But really the impulse remains, which is party over people, privilege over people. It’s just, it’s human nature, but it’s insidious. It has a way of blending in, in a way that almost makes it invisible to the majority culture.

So that call out is important. But it’s, I mean, that’s just always going to be challenging. There’s never going to be a moment that you’re going to call out white supremacy, and everybody’s just going to stand on their chairs and clap about it. So it builds in this tension and burden somewhat to your work.

So that leads me to this question, having to lead when you don’t have all the answers is hard enough, but having to lead when you’re hurting is harder yet. Having to create like you do, when you’re tired, when you’re stressed, even depressed, it’s just about impossible. You’ve got a lot of pressure on you from a lot different sides.

So I’m curious how you, how do you lead? how do you create? How do you stay creative when you are in a place of doubt or depression or fear or just burden in general?

Lecrae: Aw man. Honestly, you’re not creative at all. You’re not creative and so you’re . . .  honestly, I felt like I was just going to . . . . artistically, just bleeding out ritualistically. The art was ritualistic. It was like, if you know how to play basketball, you know how to put the ball in the hoop. You may not play creatively, you may not be at your best. And that’s what I was doing, I was still creating music out of ritual, but I just had to say the things that were burdening me. I was in a deep, deep depression, which being in that place of depression was, I haven’t really even talked about it, but that depression and that stress went unchecked for so long, it became clinical.

And then that took me to an even darker place where it took God, friends, family, just leaning in and saying, “We gotta keep you stress free for a while because this isn’t a healthy place for you.”

But yeah, creatively, that’s the beauty. God just really began to do some stuff with the music that I never would’ve anticipated in allowing me, though I felt like I wasn’t being creative, to still write and say things that needed to be said. And they were useful. And you know, of course, on social media, I may have spoken some truths out of a lot of hurt. They were still true, but it was maybe that wasn’t the best way to go about articulating it, but that’s basically what happened.

Jen: Did you step back for a while? Did you have any breather?

Lecrae: I did. I had to step back. And you know what? One thing I started to tell myself was we always need voices. We need voices to talk about the things that are wrong. And I realized I was a catalytic voice in a lot of ways. And I was saying some of the things that people were afraid to say, but needed to say.

But at the same time I began to throw myself into changing things, right? Instead of complaining about them consistently, what could I do? I was getting tired of seeing issues of systemic injustice. And so I said, “Well, how can I do something about it? What can I do in society?” And that began me working to work in the city to do some things, and even politically to make some changes as well.

Jen: That’s a huge shift I have discovered, when you own your own power and rather than just being on the receiving end of so much disappointment and sorrow and what feels like probably betrayal, to rather step into your own place of power. And that is a real emotional shift for me, and it sounds like it was for you.

Jen: Let me ask you this. So you are a dad, you’re a big time dad, kids everywhere. I would love to hear you talk for a minute about how you guys have parented your kids through your rise in fame. Because you’re super famous. Just this is a real weird family they find themselves in, right? I mean this is not a typical childhood. And so what are your kids think of this? What is their take on you? Have they been old enough or paying close enough attention to watch the last few years as you’ve really pushed and pulled and stretched a little bit?

Lecrae: Yeah. So my kids, I got a 10-year-old, 11-year-old and 7-year-old, and they’ve dealt more with Daddy having to learn new things and Daddy thinking through what he needs to teach his kids during this time period.

And I field them pretty well. I don’t put them on social media just because I think that I don’t want them to feel the pressure of having to be . . .  I want them to be who they are, not—

Jen: Lecrae’s kids.

Lecrae: Exactly. And so that just gives them a little more freedom. So when they’re out and about, that’s not how people recognize them. They’re just known for who they are.

Now obviously, there’s some places and spaces where we talk about that. We say, “Do you think they like you for you? Or do you think they like you because of Daddy?” And you know they think about it and they process it, and that’s something that they have to constantly think about and wrestle through. But we strive to . . .  my wife is really good about that, as well. We strive to make sure they have as normal childhood as possible.

Jen: Any creatives among them?

Lecrae: Oh yeah, all three of them.

Jen: Yeah. Nice.

Lecrae: All three of them. How that creativity is going to be directed, I’m not sure. But I just so happened to leave an iPad at the house and wasn’t thinking about it. And I came back home and they had made a movie trailer, and I was like, “Wait, what? Who taught you how to do this?” Kids are like, what’s going on here? They’re all creative, there’s drawings everywhere.

Jen: So among the million other things that you do, you’re also an author, which I love. So you wrote a book a couple of years ago called Unashamed. And I would love to hear as a fellow author, what was that like for you? What was that process like? Did it, I wonder if it felt any more vulnerable, putting that many words on a page and speaking them into existence, like, in a live setting? Or, and even, what did you think about the long form writing process? Because it’s all very creative, but that’s incredibly different from what you do in music.

Lecrae: Yeah, it is. I actually felt more freedom writing the book just because you don’t have to condense so much information to three minutes, you know, a three minute and 20 seconds song or something like that. So I could express way more than I would normally express.

The thing about me is, I was taught that there’s freedom in vulnerability, and leaders lead in vulnerability. So I didn’t have a problem sharing all these juicy details in my book that I shared. It was on the back end, one of my family said, “You didn’t ask us if you could talk about that.”

And I was like, “Oh . . . got you.”

Jen: The family clause is real.

Lecrae: “Forgot about talking to y’all about this.” So yeah, that was, you know.

Jen: When I have a book come out, because my kids could really care less, but they do care about their own selves. And so we have this ritual when a book comes out, we sit in the living room, and they’re like, “Just read us the parts about us.” And to date, I have read maybe half of it and like, “And that’s all I wrote about you.” They’re not going to read it. They’ll have to just find it out later in their twenties and they’ll work it out with their therapist. But yeah, the ask us . . .

My friends too, my friends have learned that they’re like something will happen, I’m there. We’re dying laughing, and they’ll have to look at me and say, “This doesn’t belong in a book.” Everything’s material, you know? Everything’s content. Sheesh.

What was the response to your book? Because that was a new way for your fans to experience you. It looked like to me that the response was really strong.

Lecrae: Yeah, no, it was a very strong response. I think there were a lot of people who understood where I was coming from as an artist, and the book just further confirmed that for them. There were other people who were on the edge about who I was and what I was about. And for them, the book gave them a deeper sense of intimacy and helped them to say, “Okay, that I get him.”

Jen: That’s good.

Lecrae: But by in large, I think just telling my story and just being honest about the struggles and the trials and tribulation was very liberating for people.

Jen: Yeah.

Lecrae: And that was the goal that I wanted, was for people to feel the freedom to own their stories and there’s power in your story.

Jen: There is.

Lecrae: Yeah, own it.

Jen: You want to write another one? Do you think you have another book in you?

Lecrae: I do, I do.

Jen: Yeah?

Lecrae: And yeah, I’m actually just at the infancy stages of that.

Jen: Yes!

Lecrae: And just writing about hope because when you’ve gone through all the hills that I’ve experienced over the last few years, you learn what hope really looks like, and you learn what surviving all of that trauma really looks like. So I want to encourage other people on how to navigate those spaces.

Jen: I can’t wait to read that.

I saw you tweet the other day about being back in the studio, so everybody’s rejoicing. What are you working on? What are we looking for and when?

Lecrae: Yeah, I’m working on a new album, so this is a very good . . .  I’m just in a really healthy emotionally and spiritual place like probably one of the best I’ve been in, and that’s when you’re very creative. And so I’m excited being in the studio and working on that album. And just . . .

Jen: That is exciting.

Lecrae: Yeah, being creative, yeah.

Jen: Because how far away is it? Is that a year away? I don’t know how long it takes to make an album.

Lecrae: Oh, no, no, no, way less, way less time than that. So I mean last time, I made about 70 songs, and then they’re just coming down and narrowing the songs down and sending them out. So we’ve been making songs and making songs. And so we won’t have any problem with songs, it’ll just be when they’ll actually see the light of day.

Jen: 70 songs? What in the world? Wow. I mean, I’d like to see what’s on your cutting room floor, dang.

Lecrae: Yeah.

Jen: That’s exciting. I can’t wait to hear that. I can’t wait to hear what you have created from that really healthy strong place, that’s going to be powerful.

Lecrae: Yeah.

Jen: I love hearing that your next book is about hope because I’ve noticed that my eyes are constantly scanning the horizon looking for it. I’m looking for hope. I’m looking for a good story. I’m looking for connection. I’m looking for healthy places of spiritual belonging, which feels sometimes like rare air these days.

Lecrae: Oh, yeah.

Jen: And so I’m happy to know that you’re steering the ship into those waters.

Lecrae: Yeah.

Jen: We need more leadership like that to sort of pull us out of the sludge.

Jen: Okay, real quick, these are three quick questions that we’ve kind of asked everybody in the Faith Series. And I told you, you are our cleanup batter in this amazing series. We’ve had some really some phenomenal thinkers and spiritual leaders on, so of which you are among.

So here’s the first one, this could be whoever, this could be a dead person or an alive person, how about that? If you could just, if you could sit down to dinner with a faith hero who would that be for you?

Lecrae: Oh wow, sit down for dinner with a faith hero.

Jen: Yeah, anybody.

Lecrae: Oh man.

Jen: It’s kind of a hard one.

Lecrae: You know what? I mean, so this is going to be kind of cliché.

Jen: Okay, that’s all right.

Lecrae: But it’s not for the reasons that most people think, I mean I’m going to say Martin Luther King.

Jen: Okay, no that’s not cliché.

Lecrae: But it’s not just because he’s a black man and I’m a black man, and he’s Christian and he’s safe or anything like that. It’s because I can only imagine the level of trauma and despair that he had to endure. Most people celebrate his heroism and his boldness, but I wonder about the inner man and the inner struggles that he had to navigate on a consistent basis because how he emerged from all that is really mind blowing to me.

Jen: Sincerely.

Lecrae: And so that will be—

Jen: And we don’t see a lot of that in his writings.

Lecrae: Right.

Jen: He kept those cards pretty close, and I would be so curious to hear that too.

Lecrae: Yeah.

Jen: How he endured and how he stayed strong. That’s a great answer, don’t apologize for that answer.

All right, how about this one, do you have any either like it could be a verse, it could be a spiritual phrase, it could even just be a spiritual idea, maybe, that you would say, “This kind of encapsulates my faith. Maybe even just my faith right now.”

Lecrae: Well yeah, I would say live out of love, forgiveness, and acceptance. Don’t live for them.

Jen: Oh wow, dang.

Lecrae: Yeah, that’s exactly the space that . . . you can be in that space of living for love, forgiveness, and acceptance and not even know it. You can say, “Oh yeah, I’m loved, I’m forgiven, I’m accepted.” But your actions are completely opposite of that, because you’re constantly fighting for the love. Every tweet you post that is encouraging maybe so that you see someone say, “I like what you have to say.”

Jen: Yeah.

Lecrae: And now you’re fighting for love and acceptance and approval and for forgiveness, instead of living out of that.

Jen: You’re right.

Lecrae: Because as a believer, I’ve been loved, accepted, and forgiven. And that’s powerful enough for me to push forward and walk in freedom.

Jen: That’s so good. I would love that.

Here’s the last one. This is actually a question that we ask every single guest in all the series. This is actually a question that I read in one of Barbara Brown Taylor’s books, and I loved it. So you can answer this however you want, it can be like a very sweet and kind and sincere answer. It could be the smallest, silliest thing you ever said, so it doesn’t matter—we get it all.

But the question says, what is saving your life right now?

Lecrae: What is saving my life right now? Oh, I mean . . . honestly, therapy.

Jen: Yes, same!

Lecrae: Yeah, honestly, therapy. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that Lecrae was devoted to his devotion to God and not God’s devotion to him.

Jen: Whoa.

Lecrae: And so when your identity is built on your devotion, when your devotion fails or falters, then who are you?

Jen: Whoa, that’s good.

Lecrae: But when your identity is built on God’s devotion to you, that devotion’s never going to falter or fail, so your identity is secure and you’re set.

Jen: Oh, that’s so good.

Lecrae: And so that’s been the thing that I’ve been getting the most out of therapy is like, yeah.

Jen: That’s so good! You’re just going to come on the podcast and preach to us!

Lecrae: No, I just—

Jen: Also I love it when my friends tell me things their therapists teach them. It’s like free therapy for the rest of us, like, “Thanks for paying for that $150 hour because that was really useful to me.”

Lecrae: Absolutely, absolutely.

Jen: That’s awesome.

Okay, before I let you go can you just tell my listeners real quick like where they can find you, where they can find all your amazing work.

Lecrae: Yeah, you can find me at any place that serves good fried hot chicken and macaroni cheese, collard greens, you can find me there. You can also find me on social media @Lecrae on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and any other antiquated versions of social media, Myspace . . .

Jen: Same.

Lecrae: I’m there. Just come find me.

Jen: People are like, “Jen, go on Snapchat.” I’m like, “I just don’t want to, I just don’t want to, I don’t want to learn it, and I’m just too tired. Just catch me on Facebook.”

Lecrae: Yeah.

Jen: Hey, thank you for coming on today. I’m just really grateful for you, for who you are, for the way that you have chosen to lead and the way that you embraced sort of a vulnerable space no matter what. And it’s just mattered, I know you know this but it has mattered, your influence has a lot of weight.

Lecrae: Wow.

Jen: And you have a lot of listeners and a lot of eyes on you. And I did not mean this in a weird way, but I’ve just been really proud of you, I’ve been really proud to watch you.

Lecrae: Oh man.

Jen: You have a lot of integrity and that matters to me more than anything. And so I’m thrilled to watch your star just continue to rise, and I’m grateful for it because you hold great influence over a generation. And so just count me among your fans, and I am here for you for the rest of our lives. Any way that I can ever get behind you, your work, your family, your message, I’m here to do it.

Lecrae: No, you’ve been great.

Jen: Thanks for being on the show today, thanks for your time. I’m just so grateful to have had you own.

Lecrae: Yeah, vice versa. You’ve been an incredible encouragement, especially during the dark seasons. It was just great to see and hear your voice in the midst of a lot of silence. And I really appreciated that,  and still do.

Jen: That’s it, that’s it. Friends for life!

Lecrae: Yes, right.

Jen: Okay, thanks for being on Lecrae.

Lecrae: Yeah, you too, thank you so much, Jen.

Jen: I am the luckiest. This is the greatest job, that I get to meet and learn from leaders and artists like Lecrae. Isn’t he great, you guys?

Look, if you, if you’re new to his music, you are going to want to race yourself to wherever you can purchase his stuff. This is also the kind of music you want to put in front of your kids. I mean, trust me: this is, it’s powerful and it’s amazing. And you know I mentioned at the top of the show, my kids go bananas, absolute bananas for Lecrae. Brandon and Ben went to his concert last year. And I’m, of course, following along with him as a leader, as a really important thinker.

So over at jenhatmaker.com under the Podcast tab, we will have everything linked: all of his music, his book, all the social handles, his tour schedule, all. All all all. So it’ll be a one-stop Lecrae shop, and you can get over there and sort of explore his stuff, if you haven’t ever.

Anyway, I just loved having him on today. That wraps our For the Love of Faith Groundbreakers series. Tears. It was, just been so amazing. I’ve been moved, and I learned, and I’ve been provoked of thought so many times, I can’t even count.

So we’re starting a brand-new series next week that we’re pumped to put in front of you. We are essentially moving into a For the Love of Health and Wellness. And this is not this boring diet. You know I would not bring that to you. We decided to take a really holistic approach at wellness. Like for example, we have a sex expert coming on. That interview got so real. We have someone who specializes in career health, someone you’ve heard of. We’ve got mental health. We’ve got physical health. It’s all, it’s really a fabulous, well-rounded series.

And so, this is going to be good for us, and we’re going to just dive into spaces that sometimes we don’t talk about as much as we should, but they very much contribute to our overall well-being.

That starts next week. You are not going to want to miss a single episode. So come back next week. We kick that off.

You guys, thanks for subscribing and rating and reviewing the podcast. Laura and Amanda and I are so grateful.

Okay, everybody, have a great week.

Narrator: That’s it for today’s show. Hope you enjoyed this chat. Be sure to subscribe to my mom’s podcast and give it a “thumbs up” rating if you like it. From the whole Hatmaker family, hope you have a great week and see you next time!