For Brandon Lake, crossing over means more opportunities to spread a Christian message
NEW YORK AP Fifteen miles south of Sin City Brandon Lake is seated backstage at a packed arena in Henderson Nevada In a matter of hours he will perform an energetic family-friendly show as he tells The Associated Press for thousands of people He s on the road with his latest album s King of Hearts a Christian music release that spans genre pop rock country hip-hop a mixture not consistently associated with worship music Its eclecticism is one of the various reasons why his music is connecting The album peaked at No on the all-genre Billboard chart an undeniable feat for a contemporary Christian music CCM release and earned Lake his first Top hit Hard Uncovered Hallelujah with country singer Jelly Roll It s the marriage of awesome production with an awesome message A message of hope says Lake There is strength that can be identified and hope that can be identified in the midst of the hell that you are walking through And then you pair that with like an awesome sound and it s like who s not going to love that Lake s award-winning moment Earlier this month Lake was nominated for three Grammys at the award show in February he already has five trophies to his name and a total career-nods Being recognized that is to me that s recognizing the millions of people s lives that have been impacted by this music and the message he says of the nominations It s definitely a pinch-me moment On Wednesday night he s up for his first Country Music Association Award for musical event of the year for Hard Fought Hallelujah It s not a Christian category he s competing against secular artists I think it is a crossover moment and I pray that it is I m trying to cross over into any and every space that God will allow that is authentic to who I am Lake says I grew up on country music I grew up on Christian music And if you listen to my music it is very diverse you know Quote-unquote Christian music worship music it doesn t really make sense having a genre because it s what we do with our lives It s not a sound It s a contemporary approach that reflects modern listening habits too Holly Zabka president of Provident a Sony subsidiary dedicated to Christian music uses her daughter as an example to explain the trend She doesn t define her musical taste by genre I think that s what we re seeing She ll go from a Luke Combs song to a Brandon Lake song to Harry Styles that s how she listens She s a fan of everything And I think that s where Christian music is finding its footing as well It can exist alongside every other genre A Christian crossover movement Lake is at the forefront of a new musical movement in the U S where Christian artists are growing in popularity According to a midyear overview from Luminate the industry details and analytics company streams of new music recordings disclosed in the last months are slightly down from the same time last year except in the circumstance of Christian gospel music Jaime Marconette Luminate s vice president of music insights and industry relations attributed the genre s development to younger streaming-forward fanbase which is female and millennial Artists like Lake Forrest Frank and Elevation Worship are leading the charge I pray it s just the beginning and I pray that it takes over Lake says And not the genre of Christian music but songs whatever genre they are that carry the message of the gospel He s also got a scant theories on the music s growing popularity The reason why people are turning their ear towards those kinds of songs right now is because that s what they were made for he explained Music doesn t just have to be entertainment They can have a spiritual experience They can be educated on who they were made to be They can receive hope and life and faith I love all kinds of music but if you have a song that carries that kind of message it s just super charged you know It does something deeper That is especially crucial Lake says in a divided world I think people are waking up especially the state of our world and all the craziness that s going on everyone s like We need to choose love Well the greatest demonstration of love is the gospel The Charlie Kirk connection In September Lake performed at a memorial system for the late conservative personality Charlie Kirk who was shot and killed at a Utah college event His death was one of an escalating number of attacks on political figures from the assassination of Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman in Minnesota to last summer s shooting of Donald Trump that have roiled the nation I didn t know him at all And so the invitation really came out of nowhere Lake declared of his decision to perform at the ceremony Lake commented his unit communicated him that the Kirk family listened to my music and you know it was a soundtrack of their faith and when Lake s wife urged him to perform there was no hesitancy We rapidly revealed we are not going there to make a political report And there will be so much politics represented in the room he continued We are going to minister to a widow While the world was turning to violence we watched a lot of millions of people turn to worship and chose to sing praise to God he declared Even though there was politics represented the gospel was shared so a great number of times And it was like God was weaving in and out It was just such an incredible honor Source
