Two genres you’d never expect to see crossed are drills and Christian hip-hop. With Christian hip-hop focusing on positivity and spiritual messaging to enlighten its listeners, and drills being hard-hitting, punchy, and often aggressively violent bars born from Chicago’s street culture that spread across the world like wildfire, the two seem fundamentally opposed on the surface level.
However, one artist has found a way to bring the aggressive enthusiasm of drills to the Christian rap world; breathing new life into the Christian hip-hop world and bringing the energy today’s youth need to absorb the lyrics and take them to heart.
Today, we want to talk about BornKing. He’s a New York rapper who’s making waves in the game, and the story of how his unique cross-bred style came to be is one that rivals some of rap’s biggest names.
BornKing Elevates a Genre to New Heights
As we said, the origin of drills and messaging of Christian hip-hop are not two things that go together easily, and the target audiences of the genres have extremely different tastes.
That’s what sets BornKing’s music apart from your average drill rapper or Christian artist. His lyrical expression covers the encouraging and enlightened messages of Christian hip-hop, but it’s delivered with the same level of intensity and punchy beats that has made drills so popular over the last 20 years.
The idea behind Gospel drills isn’t brand-new. However, it has been struggling to take off with younger audiences, because it often fails to connect with people from either of the core genres’ fanbases.
BornKing has broken through that fundamental difference between drills and Christian hip-hop to overcome the challenges Gospel drills have faced in recent years.
Several of his songs, such as The Get Back, Do My Thing, and Tread, have broken boundaries between genres, elevated BornKing to a leadership position in the Gospel Drills world, and even crossed international waters to build a fanbase in the UK and beyond.
BornKing’s Story from the Streets to Gospel Drills
Of course, BornKing wasn’t just born with a talent for hip-hop. That’s the sort of thing that comes from the soul, and it’s why a lot of previous attempts from other artists just haven’t resonated with fans. In fact, BornKing didn’t even start rapping until last year.
BornKing was born and raised in Coney Island, just a few years ago, you wouldn’t have recognized him as the musical artist he is today spreading positivity.
He was looking for love in the streets while his single mother was at home praying he’d make it back each day. He saw his friends die to street culture, and he was busy dodging bullets to avoid becoming another statistic.
That’s what breathed life into BornKing’s calling as a Gospel rapper. He felt the call of God empowering him to get off the streets and dedicate himself to doing God’s work.
For him, that meant advancing the sound of Gospel drills and penetrating a market that needs the spiritual messaging it has to offer.
BornKing’s goal from day one has been to serve the next generation by bridging the gap between Gospel drills and the young men and women who share BornKing’s painful inner-city past, to advance it further and provide them with opportunities in the genre, and most importantly, spread God’s Word and do His will.
This is why BornKing isn’t just another drill artist or Christian hip-hop star; he truly is the king of Gospel drills, and he’s here to lead it to the top of the music industry.
I’m @Bornkingmusic on all streaming platforms