Stay on ya grind!

I have a saying.

"Stay on ya grind, even if ya off your rhyme."

What does that mean? It means that continue to work and press hard for the Lord. Even if you have to let go of the pen and paper to do it. There are many ways to serve the Lord and for us musicians it doesn't always have to be in 3 verses.

Look at some of the most popular Christian Hip Hop artists like Lecrae for example. He went out and did a mission trip to Sudan last year and Hatti. Did he do shows out there? More likely than not...no. He went and did hard labor and helped the people of those countries.

Now I'm not sayin you have to go out to a 3rd world country for service. Not everyone's meant for that, but you can do service even in your own neighborhood without having to spit a flow.

You can volunteer at a Boys and Girls Club, be a mentor, clean up the streets here and there. The list goes on and on.

Lord knows that I need to be more truer to what I'm saying here, but I do try. Not as much as I'd like but I do. I as a musician get so wrapped up in what I want to accomplish with my music that I sometimes don't see that God has things He wants me to do that have nothing to do with music. I know one thing that I'm doing a lot of right now has absolutely nothing to do with music. I'm the president of a foster youth council in Kansas called the Kansas Youth Advisory Council. I use to be a foster youth and I see that the system needs changed and I want to help future youth who will have to go into the system have an easier time through it than I and countless others have. To me this is service, even though I don't use an "agenda" with it. It's not fully faith based and by no means should it be. However, I want to show Christ's love to youth who are going through a hard time right now. I was once in their shoes, and to some extent, still am. And I don't have to bring in the topic of Christ or God to show His love. That's why I do it.

When I think about service I think of the movie "Flywheel." The movie is about a man who owns a small used car business and he goes through a time of lying and bad ethnics but with God's intervention through the use of his clients, wife, son, and father he becomes a better service man and becomes one of the most trusted buisnessmen in his town.

I have a good friend in Kansas City who works at his father's car dealership (and no he's not like the character in Flywheel) and he has been becoming better with his social skills. I feel awkward saying this because he's a great mentor of mine, but eh if he has a problem with it he'll tell me later. His name is Matt Crawford, or Matt Mic. Yep he's a rapper as well. Pretty good one to. He's on blogspot as well. Here's his link: http://outtheboxx.blogspot.com. Give his posts a read. Tell him I sent you.

But the point I'm making with this example is that Matt is a rapper yet he works in a car dealership. Which, really, isn't totally related to music. That's what we as musicians need to do. Not neccisarilly find a "back-up plan" (although it doesn't hurt) but out reach and look at were the Lord would want you to do work.

I don't really have a bible verse for this one right now, but I'm pretty sure there are a few examples of this throughout. But I wanted to get that advice out there.

So I'm off to bed now

For tonight, God Bless, Grace, and Peace.

Richie