In Cross Rhythms 60 we profiled Britain's hip hop underground. Now Mike Rimmer talks to three more practitioners of holy hip hop, Reverb, Overflow and Acts29.

Acts 29

At a grassroots level, the British holy hip hop scene has experienced a number of bands emerge in the last 12 months with debut recordings. It's still an underground ignored by the myopic Christian record companies. Yet, as JD from Reverb observes, it's a scene gradually building momentum. "I think slowly it's starting to build up. Elevate, Set Free and a few other bands that I know, are in a scene. I know it's not very big at the moment. I think it's slowly starting to take off but it's quite underground at the moment."

Reverb
Reverb are brothers John Daniel and Peter Goodwin who originally went by a different name...or several. Revelation Generation...Rev Gen...Revival Generation, confusingly several different name variations were used. They recorded a debut EP 'Rev Gen Demo' which brought them a Cross Rhythms turntable hit with "Intense". Then line up changes necessitated a completely new moniker. As Reverb they are very focused on ministry. Says JD, "It's just to get God's Word out there, in a way that young people can relate to. It has to be relevant to non-Christians. We try to show them that Christians CAN have good music and have fun. And we want to get it to people that maybe wouldn't go to church. We do concerts and we do some schools. At the moment, we do a lot of stuff with our church. They get us quite good venues and we invite our non-Christian friends."

The true beginning for Reverb happened in Scotland when God envisioned JD. "We wanted to tell our friends about Jesus so we started the group. It was mainly a dance group. We did a little bit of rapping as well, but we didn't write our own songs and we just kind of danced and sang." These days JD and Peter switch between singing and rapping in a highly sophisticated fashion.

Reverb are currently working on a four-track EP with some new material that they've recently written. When it comes to a message, JD shares, "I think society is so dominated by music and has a lot of songs that are about sex and all that kind of stuff. We just want to get across that there is more to life than what people seem to think there is."

Reverb

Overflow
Five-piece London band Overflow began in the unlikely town of Worthing where Percy Gilbert and Victor Murlis were both studying degrees at Northbrooks College. Percy remembers, "We weren't really living full-on lives for God, although we were going to church and we did love God. When we met and started hanging out together, you know, it's like they say, 'Iron sharpens iron.' We stopped doing things that we used to do. We started praying together and then it went from there. We started performing at different churches and other members joined afterwards."

The other members are Julie Fox, Yenny Striberger and Paul Laing. Percy Gilbert describes the band's ministry, "We're trying to promote a pure lifestyle through Jesus Christ. Three of us are fashion designers. We're taught, in fashion, that you're not actually selling a garment, you're promoting a lifestyle. If you're promoting a lifestyle, they're promoting sex and things like that and we thought we would promote a pure lifestyle -right living through Jesus. We're really after souls. We're like soul winners. That's what we do, that's why we do it."

Their debut 'Overflow EP' was recorded at Listen-ln's studio in Cambridge, which is a ministry dedicated to encourage grassroots Christian artists. "We got some free recording space - two days free. And we put down an EP of three songs. We don't play around, we don't dilute the Gospel. In our songs, it's always about Jesus. You probably hear the name Jesus 50 times in one song - that's the kind of group we are."

Acts 29
Acts 29 is a conglomeration of a number of different crews that have come together, with the aim to be a continuation of the book of Acts in our generation. Frontman Prince comments, "Acts 29 is really about empowering, not just young people but people generally, to be that continuation. In terms of seeing God move in power, in terms of seeing God move in signs and wonders. We believe that through building our character and actively seeking God we can really be the continuation of the Acts of the Apostles, to see God move in this generation and to make a difference through our music."

Overflow

Acts 29 has four core members, Mr Prince who heads the crew, Prince's brother James who is one of the main lyricists, Mr David Plumb (aka DVD) who produces a lot of the music and production for the band. The fourth member of the band is breakdancer Kevin McGlade (aka The Gladiator). Prince describes the band's song "Born Again Believers". "We're hoping it is going to be a bit of an anthem. It's really just a funky shout out track to born again believers. It's saying, 'Don't be afraid to represent for Jesus. Don't be afraid to raise your hands and say I'm a born again believer. Don't be afraid to say yeah, Jesus rules the roost. He has his way in my life. Don't be afraid to let your life reflect that you're a born again believer.'"

DVD describes another of the band's songs, "Sin Haters". "Although we love Jesus, for some reason, sometimes we go back to sin. It was really just a stand against sin and the onslaught against the enemy. It's really just a shout out saying, 'We're against sin, we hate it'."