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Contents January 2021
This month we candidly talk with one of the leaders of the culture, BIZZLE, and learn more about God Over Money beginnings, along with an introduction to the CHH Playlist Charts, and an amazing tribute to Black History Month from our editors. Our favorite crews back with Fire, Gass, or Pass and FMG’s in the building along with great insight in our Tip Jar, and we can’t forget The New Music Playlist and more.
INCOMING 12 Sam Purpose 14 FMG Family 25 RYZE New Music Playlist Artists on the RYZE 26 Ms. Day 33 N.I.F.T.Y. Christian Cover Story: 38 BIZZLE 25 RYZE New Music Playlist 46 CHH Playlist Charts Tip Jar: 56 Finding My Way
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EDITORIAL Review Editors: Jay & Chris Brooks Editor-At-Large: David Quinones Managing Editor: Aulsondro “Novelist” Hamilton aka Emcee N.I.C.E. Editor-in-Chief: Naé Thompson
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Incomer, Sam Purpose, is formerly pursuant of all things counterproductive to his purpose; but now in pursuit of a true relationship with Jesus Christ, he’s well on his way to total victory. A father of two, husband and servant, Sam desires to authentically represent Christ while encouraging the body to remain steadfast in their faith, daily, and continue pursuing Christ even amid adversity.
The most important thing to me when writing is who God wants to speak to through my music, unbelievers or Christians, and what He wants to say. I then ask my producer to create a beat based on the mood of my message. If it is encouraging then I want something bright and upbeat if it is a rebuke, warning, or heartfelt, I prefer something dark and mellow.
Did you always grow up knowing you’d be a rapper? No. I started out wanting to be a professional basketball player. I had a passion for basketball yet when I started having seizures every time I played I got discouraged. I started writing songs at the age of 9 but it was about money, drugs, sex, and violence... you know, what I was exposed to around my way.
What is your prayer for the church today? My prayer is that we learn to love others we disagree within the body of Christ. The bible says we should be swift to hear and slow to speak slow to anger for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Also, it states that ALLmen will know we are his disciples when we have love for one another. He was not talking to unbelievers in this context but the church/believers. I believe when we first learn to deny ourselves for the sake of pleasing God we can practically apply this to our lives.
What is the process behind writing your songs? I look at society, my personal life, sermons from my pastor, and the Word of God to help me come up with a song.
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FMG opens the new year with a hot new single, and a video to match, “FOREIGN”! These amazing artists are spreading the Word of God while keeping it 100% real with their profession of Faith and their pursuit of God! “FOREIGN” features artists that are quickly making names for themselves like William Cata, Godfearin(Tee Jay), 21 Staydown, Rommie Brown, Ahmad Smith, Ms. Day, A’sha, and Melli Isha! All the way to the top, this unique blend of talent has come together to produce a hype new record that’s shot up to the #3 spot on the Gospel BDS charts! So, Whether you choose to buy it, stream it, watch the video on YouTube, or even listening to it on the radio, we guarantee this is a song you can rock too. It’s FIRE! Rommie Brown teamed up with one of the hottest Billboard producing engineers in the industry, Tedy P, to produce a wavy fun sound that captures the flow of each artist and their artistic flow. From the rapid-fire bars of Rommie Brown to the sultry voice of A’sha, this song has something for everyone. Even the Puerto Rican Princess, Melli Isha, drops her Latin jewels and incorporates a Lil Spanish flavor while the stylish Ms. Day spits some of that gospel heat! When talking to the artist about the video, they described how great it was to be able to come together as Christians and just have fun turning up for God. Godfearin and 21 22 RYZE FEBRUARY 2021
Staydown brought their swag, while Ahmad Smith had the comedic relief. CEO of FMG, Mr. Chris McNair, shared “some may look at the video and think we were having a Lil too much fun, but don’t worry, we kept it sin free!” FMG is an exciting bunch who keeps it 100%. They have a lot of new content on the way. Tap In! Check Out each one of these artist on the Gram! @itsfmg @chris__life @msday_ @ashaishername @devenfmg @melli_isha @officialrommiebrown @ahmadsmithofficial @21staydown @godxfearin @tamerahli
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When we consider Kingdom Business GOD Over Money becomes a staple to glean from — “It’s been ALL GOD from the beginning…” BIZZLE shares when asked how it all began. When I came into the game I always had a plan, initially, I started in the secular realm, and I always had a plan but my plan neva came through. You know what I’m sayin’ so I left my plan to pick up whatever GOD had for me… AND His plan is open-ended. He didn’t show the details for me to be able to make a wise decision or nothing; the wisdom was in choosing God, and whatever He got for me, I’ll take. AND man, He’s been blessing the music, blessing the ministry, the apparel, everything. So, I’ve been trying to stay glued to His hip (LOL), the whole time. When asked about the apparel line BIZZLE shared this short story. When we started with the apparel line, that mess was a flop. I was still working a 9 to 5, right, so we didn’t have bread like that. And I remember God through my testimony experience already stamped God Over Money on my heart. You know what I’m saying… I came from money over everything type of mentality, type of world. So when He snatched me out, God Over Money was what He stamped on my heart. A convention was coming to town and we got these shirts made up. Now, I was going to Mt. Zion in Compton, when I got saved but then I started going to this small church in Watts, and my pastor was going out to Houston to do this Baptist convention. It was supposed to be around 10k people there, he said, “You can use my booth.” So, I get 200 shirts pressed up, you know, I borrowed some money from my Mom, took all our little $500 savings and I’m like, “Yo, I’m going to press these 40 RYZE FEBRUARY 2021
shirts up. I’m going to this event before I go to work, for the next three days, you know. So, I’ll go sell the shirts and drive to work from there. I sold two shirts in three days— 3 days. Not only was time wasted, but money too. You know how it is when, “I’ve always been the rapper, like babe, I’m working on this new mixtape, you know what I’m sayin’ (LOL)? So, by the time we get here I’m older now, I believe we had my oldest son, I’m trying to make wise decisions, feel me… I bring the idea to my wife, she gets on board, supports me, then it’s like dang! I failed! We got a living room full of boxes, of these shirts and it’s like, now, what we gone do?” I was the dream seller, and I failed again… and someone was like man just throw one of them joints on and go take a picture in it, maybe you can sell the shirts online. AND, I did that and just started moving them through PayPal, and it started moving. God started putting His hand to it. AND this is how He usually works with me, and I see it biblically too — the way it looks like it’s supposed to work, God usually doesn’t work like that. So you’ve got 10k people, in this one place that’s where it looks like you’re going to sell all the shirts; and then it doesn’t work like that at all. I thought I was going to sell more than two though (LOL). He let me do what made sense logically, and then He put His hand on it afterward and showed me what He could do without all of that, the venue, events, or any of that. And it started picking up. I was still working my job. I’d go send merch off on my lunch break and then eventually it got to be much bigger, too big to do alone. So we handed it off to someone else to help work it… and that’s the beginning of the GOD OVER MONER apparel line.
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Tell us more about GOD OVER MONEY. How’d it come to be? Well, Christian Rap always had a corny, whack, stigma on it. It had that when I was in the world, but when I got over here I saw how many dope emcees there were even outside of the familiar people — outside the artists people would push to me — there were so many cats that weren’t getting promoted, whose names I had never heard before, whose lyrical ability I respected. So it was more like, yo, they need to see that we got options over here, they need to see that it’s Christian rappers just as nice, if not hotter. And I just wanted to do my part to help push that. God Over Money started as a testimony, and a line in a song, rap lyrics...then it became the mantra before it became the apparel and me just trying to build a place where we can keep the music thorough. And do what I call truth music— it needed a name and it was what we were already pushing, you to feel me.
is here… like anywhere you might have a corny artist or two, but the world got mad corny artists— that’s the thing right? Don’t compare the Kendrick Lamar’s and Jay Cole’s, to the cat with a laptop. Don’t do that. Let’s compare the top to the top. Bar for bar. AND let’s see who’s inspired, who feels like what, after they hear the records. Let’s tell the truth. When I was in the world and had my one positive song on the album lyrically it wasn’t messing with the other records. But something dropped when I wasn’t cussing and most artists can’t do it. A Christian artist has a smaller vocabulary in that certain words we can’t say… when it’s time to rhyme there’s mad stuff that I can’t say. I have to be careful of pride, and all of those things so within the workings of the tools that we use and we’re still able to come up with the type of fire we come up with… if we gave them the same toolbox I don’t think they could mess with us.
What do you say to those who still feel like CHH is corny? Some feel like CHH should not be a genre. What do you have to say about that? Nah, I think we killin’ them right now… I don’t want to hear that, cause we can start naming secular artists, you know what I’m saying and there are some cats out there wearing dresses and all kind of stuff don’t call us corny brotha, we out here, marrying our wives, raising our children, and making an honest living. While they feeding y’all poison, ain’t nothing corny about that. Y’all betta go holla at them about that poison they’re selling!!
So in talking about talent… we think GOM has one of the best core groups of Christian Hip Hop artists seen in a long time… thinking back to the era of The Def Squad, Red Man, Keith Murray, that’s what we see and we’re enamored. So in selecting the artist for GOM how’d it come about? What’s your mindset going when gathering the members of GOM? Honestly, I wanted artists that could hang on the record with anybody; that’s always been the prerequisite. Even with the newest member of GOM, AI the Anomaly, the female… (wait, her album is fire!) — appreciate you… yo, that’s what I’m saying… I’m like, man I hope people don’t sleep on this album cause this joint is hard.
It’s also the industry’s thought to bring less focus to CHH while trying to infiltrate the genre…Why do you think that is? The talent
How’d you meet the artists? I met everybody differently. Bumps was the first one I signed. Lyrically insane...
he won a contest I had for one of my songs called Christ Reigns on an early mixtape. Later down the line Selah, he disc’d me (LOL), that was my first impression of him. We got an opportunity to connect and get an understanding and then he became a part. Then I was introduced to Datin— he used to be a battle rapper... I started building with him, at first, he wasn’t even interested in being an artist he was A/R, helping me with whatever I needed. After building for a while he signed on to GOM. Then he introduced me to Jered Sanders and then he came on. AND then, I knew A.I. The Anomaly, her church booked me years, and years ago. So I always knew of her. And I watched the music grow, over and over, over the years— and get better and better. I heard some of her recent music and was like, yeah... that’s fire! Had the conversation and brought her on. How has GOM maintained over this COVID period? Yeah, I think I did all of two shows last year. It’s been crazy. But, from a business standpoint, I focused more on apparel and because I put more into it, I’ve seen a better return from it. It’s been between that and the stock market. I was like listen, “we gone have to make up for that show money (LOL), from somewhere), but really God touched the business and we’ve done well. In the process everybody’s been recording as well, so we have everybody dropping projects this year. I’m still molding mine because I’ve had to reflect during this season with so much going and without speaking negatively over myself the music hasn’t been as fun. So I’m still crafting it, and seeing what I’m going to do. Cause I don’t want it to be a boring project. But it’s truth music... I don’t have a 44 RYZE JANUARY 2021
whole lot of happy right now. And, I think people like deep, reflective BIZ anyway... I think some dope music will come out of all of this. Your bar game is phenomenal! We listen to some of the old records, the way you put metaphors, and phrases together are phenomenal. And we heard you dabble in singing yourself. What inspired that? I thought I was going to be a singer when I was little (LOL). I wanted to sing, and then I hit puberty, and my voice went down the drain (LOL). I’ve always loved the melody, the homies used to especially when I was in the world, you know the kind of crowds we were around, the masculine energy from the homies would be like stop singing on all these records (LOL). They gone think we soft (LOL)... But I always liked singing records. One of my favorite groups was Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. I was always writing R/B type records so now what really started me singing on my stuff was writing it and trying to get singers to sing it right. I remember being in-studio sessions where three different singers back-to-back came in and tried to sing the hook and they all couldn’t— and I left the studio without the song. So, I started writing it, so I could do it. I’ve never really been able to wait for people. So I started writing in tones that I could get away with singing my stuff, that way I didn’t have a bunch of incomplete records. And now everybody is bringing the melodies like now it’s a singing game almost a sing rap game. Are you going to put out a singing record period? Nah...the closest I came to that is when I put out Light Work 2: Bars & Melodies. I didn’t want to put out a
record without giving all my fans what they wanted. With that project, it’s just that the first half is more rapping the second half is pretty much all singing. That was the closest I’m going to get to it. I have a gift in the melody area not so much in the singing area. What are your thoughts on the ecosystem being created for the Culture? That’s where the Catch-22 is, right? I’ve said this regarding CHH, other CHH artists, and myself at times, “we value the world’s val-
idation more than our own.” It’s like you can be nominated for a Stellar Award but if the Grammys call you push the Stellars to the side. You could hit me and say, “yo, man your song’s spinning on a Christian Hip Hop station, and I’m like yo, that’s what’s up!”, but then you be like Hot 97 is playing your song, and then we’re like, “yo that’s dope!” and the reaction be like the world sees us now. That’s the part that makes it hard. They can’t get big without us supporting, right? Likewise, for CHH we all need to support the Culture.
“It’s always been GOD from the beginning!”
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