Photograph: CHRIS HOWE, a.k.a. Disciple, embraces the Gospel through rap. Photo Credit: Leila Gorchev.
By Leila Gorchev, Staff Reporter
"The Bible says, `Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord,'" said Chris Howe, a.k.a. Disciple, a preacher who spreads God's message through rap. "It didn't say how to praise him; it just said praise him."
As a teenager who hung out with rap crews in the Bronx and Harlem in the late '70s, Disciple once boasted about himself in his rap. Back then, his cares were, "How I'm gonna have so many women, how I'm gonna make so much cash, and how I'm gonna be sitting on top of the world," he said. "God wasn't even in the scene at that time."
Eight years ago he put him there by embracing born-again Christianity.
A health plan worker by day and a minister around-the-clock, Disciple, 31, aims to "plant seeds" through music and released his first album, "Preach da Word," this month.
He finds his niche among like-minded music ministries, gospel rappers and deejays who try to build a musical bridge between generations of Christians.
Disciple wants to reach "the whole world," and believes that gospel rap, with its sweet sounds of faith and hard hip-hop, is the road there. Unlike artists who dilute the gospel to meet more secular tastes, Disciple wants to remain "hard core" and not stray from preaching the Gospel.
But he knows that gospel rap catches some flack among the uninitiated. He was almost shouted off the stage of a Manhattan night club two years back, but didn't yield to the hostile crowd.
"You have to either say I'm going to stand for God, or I'm gonna keep God in the closet," he said.
He was vindicated when people approached him after the performance saying, "Hey, yo Disciple, I like what you did man. That stuff is all right," he recalled. "But they didn't want nobody to see that they was talking to me about church."
But now there's a night club where his audience unabashedly embraces his words.
The Quarry, at 141 E. 140th St. in Mott Haven, dedicates the first Saturday of the month to a Gospel Lighthouse evening. For a $10 cover charge, patrons get a meal and a mix of traditional, rap, salsa and reggae gospel by Dr. D., a gospel deejay who helped launch the event.
It's a good alternative to a "disco setting," said 26-year-old Clyve Grant from Brooklyn. "There's nothing wrong with Christian singles meeting. There's no guns, no drugs, the place is clean."
Carol Wynne, 34, welcomed the live gospel rappers' positive tunes. "They're not talking about drugs, and killing and all those things," she said. "They don't have rap's negative impact."
And Disciple doesn't want his message to be lost in his quest for fame.
If you stray from the word, he said, "You're fooling nobody but yourself." "Because when it's all said and done, and it's all over with, we're gonna have to pay an account of what we do down here."
