Mogli the Iceburg, not a fan of prosperity gospel

Because his mother died when he was about to turn 12, the Christian rapper known as Mogli the Iceberg rejected the prosperity gospel, this idea that God only wants to bless you and have you live in blissful happiness at all times.

“I’m well aware of the extent of suffering that exists in the world,” Mogli says. “I’ve always been resistant to ideas like the prosperity gospel, when somebody promises that things are all going to be good. Look around the world. Does God not also love people in Afghanistan? Or Haiti?”

Mogli is among the most philosophical, if not depressive, of Christian Hip Hop’s rhymers. Together with nobigdyl, he is founding member of indie tribe collective, along with Jarry Manna, Jon Keith and D.J. Mykael V., putting out some of CHH’s most cutting-edge music.

Born Jacob Hornburgh, the Long Beach native moved with his music-performing parents to rural Tennessee, where he stood out for being Mexican American. He says at his high school, he was one of five Latino kids.

That’s where he got his rap name. Because he was tall, lanky with a scruff of dark hair, kids thought he looked like Mogli from the Jungle Book. To his nickname, he added “iceberg” which rhymes with his last name.

His parents made their living with Christian music, and they encouraged Mogli to develop his tastes and talents. When he was turning 12, his mom died of an unexpected heart attack. It was heartbreaking and sobering to be aware of human mortality at such a young age.

“I never really went super into like I’m mad at God because i just knew that was irrational, but it it does kind of temper other expectations,” Mogli says. “There’s no promise that Read the rest: Mogli the Iceburg

She became a mother of 13 in 18 months

Katie Davis Majors was a Tennessee high school homecoming queen headed to nursing school. But instead, she became a mom to 13 girls – all in 18 months.

Katie adopted them all in Uganda, where she ditched her high-paying career path to work in poverty as a missionary at an orphanage in Africa.

““God just designed me that way because he already knew that this is what the plan was for my life — even though I didn’t,” she says on madehanaqvinews.com.

In 2008, she was class president of her high school Brentwood, Tennessee, when she went on a short-term mission trip to Uganda. Short-term missions make a lasting impact on many, but for Katie it was off the charts.

The poverty she observed moved her to compassion. Believing she could make a difference, she made a heartfelt decision: to put off college for one year and teach kindergarten in the Christian-run orphanage.

During her time there, a terrible rainstorm caused a mudhouse to collapse, burying several children. Leaders scurried to rescue the kids buried under the remains of the earthen house. Fortunately, none were seriously hurt and could recover in a local hospital.

After being rescued, Agnas, 9, whose parents both died of AIDS, plaintively asked if she could live with Katie forever.

Looking into the pleading brown eyes, Katie could not say no.

That was the beginning. Katie didn’t immediately embrace her destiny. To please her parents, she returned to the United States to get her nursing degree but found herself longing for the orphans in Uganda.

Ultimately, she returned as a full-time missionary. As she worked with the children, she felt a bond growing in her heart and wondered if she could adopt. Under Uganda law, she had to be 25 to adopt, but she could initially be granted custodial care.

She began her missionary work by teaching kindergarteners who were eager to learn.

Katie stayed in Uganda, serving. Everyday was filled with love and joyful sacrifice. She wound up marrying a fellow Tennessean missionary, Benji Davis, and they started a family, with God providing two biological sons.

When she was old enough, she began adopting orphans — 13 of them! Wow! Read the rest: Tennesseean adopts 13 Ugandan girls

Through 71 days hospitalized, praise sustained him as he fought Covid

James Story wrote a song for his sister after her death. How could he possibly have known that the same song would save his life?

James contracted Covid-19 in March, in the early stages of the outbreak in America when doctors still did not know much about the pandemic. He very nearly died.

“I had become septic. I started dialysis because the kidneys were failing,” James recounts on a CBN video. “From there it was pretty much downhill.”

James felt chills and fever in March of this year, when Covid first broke out in the U.S. He went to the ER, but doctors, not diagnosing Covid, sent him home. Over the weekend, he grew worse and had to be taken to the hospital.

For several weeks, he went in and out of consciousness and remained on a ventilator for 15 days. His vitals got progressively worse. His kidneys were breaking down, so he required hemodialysis. Among the many afflicted by Covid, his was one of the most severe.

Meanwhile, his friends from church set up a prayer page on Facebook, and the Gallatin, Tennessee Methodist church entreated God on behalf of the retired college music professor.

As he lingered near death, James didn’t just waste his downtime in the hospital. “I took advantage of the time that I had away to meditate and read scriptures and become closer to God,” he says.

That’s when he got a vision.

“I felt like I was in a grave, and I was trying to pull myself up (out of the grave) to the sunlight,” he remembers. “I felt as though I saw the face of God and He was reaching out his hand to me. All I could do was bow down and worship.”

Meanwhile, doctors were concerned the damage would be permanent, which required the installation of a tracheostomy feeding tube.

Nurse practitioner Laura Youngman attests to the miracle.

In all, James spent 71 days in the hospital.

Eventually, doctors wanted to get him off the ventilator. But James was attached to the easy breathing like a security blanket. He became agitated over the potential loss of the ventilator. Read the rest: James Story’s recovery from Covid was helped by prayer and praise.

A ‘time of death’ brought Derek Minor to God

Excuse Derek Minor for bragging in his Christian hip hop, but it’s hard to not be excited about how God brought him out of poverty: While Dad and Grandma were on dope, mom was Wonder Woman raising up the middle Tennessee youngster with strict Christian principles.

The founder of Reflection Music Group can’t tone down the boasting since God helped him pay back his mother.

“They say I’m bragging when I tell ‘em I pull up in foreign cars with wife and children,” Minor says on the song “Maybe.” “You would too if you grew up in a broken home.”

Today, Derek Minor is considered by some to be one of the four “new OGs” — the new “Old Gangsters” who are leading the current crop of CHH. (He shares that with Lecrae, Bizzle and Ruslan — all of whom operate CHH labels that crank out music from multiple artists).

Derek Minor is also CHH’s professor of sociology, explaining the harsh realities of the hood to the kids in the suburbs. He goes so far as to say kids from the hood realistically have no other option other than to sell drugs, but before you fire your judgment gun, consider the ease with which suburbanites justify funny accounting and tax evasion, or other white collar offenses. Minor is only promoting understanding, compassion and mercy toward those facing daunting challenges.

Derek Johnson, Jr. was born in Pontiac, Michigan in 1984, but the family moved to Tennessee when he was young. His relationship with his birth father was poor, and then his mom remarried a drug-abusing jazz musician. Step dad inspired his musical inclinations, while mom kept him on track with a brand of devout Christianity, according to his former website.

From age 12, Derek Minor — which was his second stage name — was rapping to beats produced by his step dad. By age 15, he decided to study recording industry management at Tennessee State University. His mom bought production equipment and he graduated in 2006.

At 21, his bunk bed was his mic stand. As he released his first mixed tape with an independent company that failed, he started to rebel. Free from the strict oversight of his mom, Minor lost control after he discovered women and money.

A “season of death”‘ shook him up and he was forced to come to grips with humanity’s mortality. In a short span, he lost his grandfather, grandmother and his godmother. The sobering tragedies prompted him to dedicate his life and music to God.

His first stage name was PRo, a take off of “prodigal.” Read the rest: Derek Minor Christian rapper.

nobigdyl. is a big deal

As a church kid, Dylan Phillips thought all he had to do was be good.

“I just thought that getting good grades, not talking back, going to church, those were all the same thing,” he says on Jam the Hype.

But how good? When he got into his teen years, he started sneaking off and dabbling in sin. Then his pastor hit him straight between the eyes with a sermon titled, “Faith without works is dead.”

“There wasn’t an outworking of that faith in my life. That really started to be evident in my teens,” Dylan says. “My pastor at the time preached in James 2. That showed me that intellectual belief, no matter how factually that belief is held, by itself, if there’s no outworking in your life as Jesus as your Lord, doesn’t make you any different than the demons.”

Now serious about his walk with God, Dylan Phillips is a red-hot Christian rapper for Capitol Records. His feel-good style and catchy melodies are enhanced by upbeat lyrics. Songs about purple dinosaurs and yabadabadoos! communicate themes of love and community.

Underscoring the fact that he doesn’t take himself too seriously and as a counterpoint for the secular rapper BIG whom he admired, he adopted the stage name nobigdyl. (dyl is the first part of his name). “The heart behind it is that my music isn’t about me,” he says. He insists it must be all lower case, the opposite of his collective colleague WHATUPRG?

His humility is a breath of fresh air amid the growing toxicity of trap rap pride taking over Christian hip hop.

Despite his self-deprecating stance, nobigdyl is a big deal.

His flows are oriented toward youth, about breakups, suicide, drug addiction and self-esteem.

But the dour broodings of NF may be contrasted with the buoyant optimism of nobigdyl.

Dyl was born in Hayward, California, in 1991, but his family moved to Bell Buckle, Tennessee when he was nine. He’s now based in Nashville. His dad secretly introduced him to hip hop (against Mom’s wishes), and he became a fan of The Notorious B.I.G. and Onyx.

He studied audio and production at Middle Tennessee State University before switching majors to focus on the business side of music. He grew academically, professionally and most importantly spiritually. “My faith didn’t really become my own until I went to college,” he says.

Through connections, he started managing CHH legend Derek Minor.

This led to his big break: he got fired. Find out how nobigdyl getting fired led to his success.

After dropping out of partying, Mat Kearney took off in music industry

Skate-boarding teenager Mat Kearney spray-painted graffiti on trains and sold pot. He got into Cal Sate University Chico on a soccer scholarship but was a lackluster English major. Whenever his roommate wasn’t watching, he swiped his guitar and played for hours and hours — that’s how his musical career was born.

After shedding the vacuous party life and finding Jesus, Matthew William Kearney now has five top 20 hits on the Adult Top 40 Chart. He sings “Hey Mama,” “All I Need,” “Nothing Left to Lose” and more recently the haunting ballad about overcoming conflict in marriage, “Ships in the Night.”

“I guess I lived it up and did what everyone said you should do in college,” he said on CBN. “I discovered the depth of depravity, the bleakness of that lifestyle. It just wasn’t working. I finally started understanding there must be more to life.”

Kearney’s journey to success has been just as accidental as the misspelling of his name on his birth certificate that he discovered only in the eighth grade. He says the nurse got it wrong, so he spells it: “Mat.”

His grandfather ran a fake cigar shop in Rochester, New York, that was a front for a gambling ring. The mob shut down the business because it was encroaching on their territory, he said. This was during the depression, so Kearney’s father suffered hardship.

His dad served in Vietnam, followed the rock group Pink Floyd through Europe, and later became a lawyer in America. He moved to Hawaii where he worked as a deckhand on a boat and met Kearney’s mom, who was working as a mermaid for glass-bottom boat tours. They married and moved to Eugene, Oregon.

Kearney could roam freely as a kid in Oregon. He got into all kinds of trouble and loved soccer. By his own account, he “barely” was accepted into Chico State, which doesn’t have the highest academic entrance standards and is famous for being a party school. He received a soccer scholarship and was appreciated by his coach for intensity on the field.

But as he experimented for hours with a piano and practiced his singing pitch, he fell out of love with soccer.

A friend who would later become a music producer spontaneously asked him to go with him to Nashville, Tennessee.

Kearney could roam freely as a kid in Oregon. He got into all kinds of trouble and loved soccer. By his own account, he “barely” was accepted into Chico State, which doesn’t have the highest academic entrance standards and is famous for being a party school. He received a soccer scholarship and was appreciated by his coach for intensity on the field.

But as he experimented for hours with a piano and practiced his singing pitch, he fell out of love with soccer.

A friend who would later become a music producer spontaneously asked him to go with him to Nashville, Tennessee.

I helped him pack up his trailer and we put a mattress on the back of his truck. We basically drove cross-country and slept in the back.” Kearney said. “When we pulled into Nashville we slept in a school parking lot for three days until we finally rented this apartment where the roof was caving in and mice were crawling all over.”

Robert Marvin recorded with him all summer, and Kearney fell in love with the farmland surrounding the blue-collar city, so that’s where he stayed and made his fame. For his second album, he signed with Columbia Records.

It was in Nashville that he met and married his wife, Annie Sims, who was an actress but worked at Anthropologie. He was smitten by the Southern belle and wrote “Hey Mama!” after seeing her. Today they have a one-year-old, Olive. Read the rest of Mat Kearney Christian.