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The group is CHRISTOPHER, a trio of singers who offer an honest and down-to-earth perspective of Gospel music and the album is The Journey, a collection of songs that reveal a timeless relevancy that will serve as a turning point for inspirational and gospel music.
By happenstance, the group consists of three male vocalists from the Dayton, OH area who all share the first name Christopher. Officially they are Christopher Reid, Christopher Surratt and Christopher McNeal; collectively they are CHRISTOPHER; pioneers of ‘new school of Gospel music,’ music for the next millennium that skirts the line between Gospel and R&B Hip Hop.
Their debut album The Journey has the weighty passion of old-school soul with the energy and grit of new-school hip hop. It is life music more than anything else where the genre classification is irrelevant but the messages and portraits of experience are what stand-out. These perfectly-executed reality-based songs are drawn from the trio’s life lessons … heartbreaks and loves-lost; triumphs and successes – it is a complete picture of a Christian life un-watered down.
The group has been singing together for over 15 years and their process getting to this day and to this debut release is the very ‘journey’ they sing about. “Our journey has been a long one,” Christopher Surratt recalled. “What we’ve learned is that we had to be comfortable with who GOD called US to be … we lacked identity for so long that we were not living in our purpose but rather chasing after other’s … It was scary to see a vision that was so different from what we were used to seeing as the standard of success in the gospel industry … but God called us to be different – to be the voice that will compel people to be comfortable to say what’s on their minds and to be the ones to deal with life issues.”
Tales of love, celebration and relationship with God combined with relatable lyrics are replete on The Journey which touches upon universal and sometimes uncomfortable truths – that although, salvation and relationship with Christ IS the answer, that doesn’t mean the road will always be easy.
The Journey is definitively Gospel music that is infused with enough contemporary devices to stay relevant in the mainstream. For example, the album’s lead single, “YES” is a bouncy mid-tempo track revealing the simplicity of affirming God’s will with one word … Yes. “In writing the song I didn’t want to write something that has been heard before,” said Christopher McNeal. “At that time I was having a difficult and trying week … the one thing that kept coming out, that kept resonating in my spirit was YES … through it all no matter what, I will say yes to God.”
Laying bare one’s private thoughts, experiences and feelings is not easy but group member Christopher Reid explains that the album is simply about real life. “We live a real and tangible life where we are not shuttered in the church-house 24 hours a day … we have to go outside and deal with things outside of the church,” Reid said. “If you look at the Bible almost everything you read did not take place in the temple … it dealt with the lives and situations of the people. We want to deal with every aspect of life so we can connect with them and hopefully show a world that we’ve dealt with the same issues and felt the same way.”
One stand-out instance where reality and art collide is “She Did Me Wrong,” a gritty truth-telling story giving a no-holds barred approach to a real-life situation, that’s never before been heard in Gospel music. The emotion-filled lyrics and delivery is indicative of exactly what defines this group as thought-provoking and honest. It is a song specifically about the heart of a Christian – having to love in the face of hurt and destruction.
“It’s a song about something that really happened to me,” explained McNeal. “Displaying all my real feelings … The anger and the emotion that is all in the song and when I was going through the experience, it was a battle of the natural and spiritual sides of me … I wrote that song as it really was … Grimy, emotional, truthful.”
The thoughtful slow jam, “Tired” addresses a point of the desperation that we’ve all faced at one time or another. Another raw and realistic song coming from a rarely spoken of dark place that is true and honest, “Tired” communicates frustration as a Christian. “I wrote ‘Tired’ in the midst of seeing things happening around me that I couldn’t understand,” McNeal said. “My immediate emotion was jealously and instead of keeping it inside I chose to write about it … think we, collectively as a group, are unafraid to be vulnerable or embarrassed about speaking on things that have hurt us. People have really responded to this song because they have felt the same thing … in their jobs, marriages, careers, relationships … they’ve been tired. We’ve all been there and that is what our music touches on, being able to say to someone we might not know how to make it better but we can relate.”
The introspective and groove-inspired “Could It Be,” an absolutely fantastic soul song digs deep into the complete and unconditional love of God. The lyrical beauty of the song strips bears the need for anyone or anything else but God and the desire to know His heart. “Our plea is for people to think about life outside of what they’ve learned,” said McNeal. “Our songs are an extension of our life and we learned that sometimes the things you hear in church do not deal with the reality of life. We want people to solely seek after His heart … We use our experience to help others and what you hear on the album is His Hand on our lives.”
The Journey is not all pensive and pain it does indeed deal with the complete life and as such there are good times, parties and celebration. “Weekend,” the feel-good funky party rhythm is cleverly matched with the symbolism of God’s presence. “The Weekend is a metaphor to explain that very special place in God where there is nothing but peace, joy and happiness,” explains Reid. “In most cases everyone is happy on Friday no matter what kind of week they’ve had because that means a ‘break’ … In God there is that break that departure from the stress, the work and the problems.” And “Clap,” is a Reggae-flavored bumping bass line housing the significance of deliverance and salvation within a song that could be heard from the church to the club.
Packed with a mix of real-life emotion, thought-provoking, spiritual soul-searching love songs, funky rhythms and parities The Journey gives you a snapshot of the whole life of a Christian – the up and downs of life that isn’t perfect but is being perfected by God.
