50 facts about Lecrae: became the first hip hop artist to win Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album

Lacrae won a Grammy award in the process and landed a global distribution deal with Red Distribution/Sony Music for the record label he co-owns, Reach Records. Learn 50 interesting facts about the artist.

1. Lecrae Devaughn Moore has won many music awards over the space of his career, including two Grammy Awards and four Dove Awards.

2. In 2013, he became the first hip hop artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album, which was awarded to his sixth album, Gravity.

3. Thematically, one can find inspiration, faith and honesty in his music.

4. As an artist, Lecrae has nearly reached the pinnacle of success. He's released six bestselling albums and two mixtapes.

5. He won a Grammy award in the process and landed a global distribution deal with Red Distribution/Sony Music for the record label he co-owns, Reach Records.

6. In 2010, Lecrae released the critically-acclaimed album Rehab.

7. Rehab debuted in the Top 20 on the coveted Billboard Top 200 Album Chart.

8. By 2011, Lecrae released a follow-up album, Gravity, scoring the #1 pole position atop the Rap Album and Independent Album charts and debuting at #3 on the Billboard Top 200.

9. He's since performed at the BET Hip Hop Awards, contributed to Statik Selektah's mixtape and collaborated with a litany of hip-hop veterans and producers.

10. In between albums, Lecrae produced and released Church Clothes, his own mixtape, hosted by radio legend Don Cannon.

11. Church Clothes featured production by Boi-1da, 9th Wonder, S-1 and Street Symphony, an indication that Lecrae's positive message has been well received by his contemporaries.

12. The mixtape Church Clothes earned a double platinum rating and debuted at #10 on iTunes.

13. As a result of his musical growth, Lecrae was invited to join the legendary touring hip-hop festival, "Rock The Bells Tour," in 2013.

14. He united with a lineup of hip-hop legends Wu-Tang Clan, Rakim and Common and fan favorites Kendrick Lamar, J.Cole and Juicy J.

15. He released Church Clothes 2, the follow-up to his massively successful first mixtape. Again hosted by Don Cannon and executive produced by Street Symphony, it features collaborations with B.o.B., Houston native Paul Wall, Novel, Kevin Ross, Crystal Nicole, King Mez and labelmates Derek Minor and Tedashii.

16. The message of his music has attracted everyone from the kid in his basement making beats to the editors of some of the biggest publications in the world.

17. Lecrae embraces the discovery and views it as an opportunity. "A mentor told me years ago, 'Lecare you're not in the widget and gidget business, you're in the people business. As long as you take care of people, they'll take care of you.' So we've always looked at it as if we're not trying to sell CDs, we're trying to take care of people - Give them messages of hope and inspiration. Some people put content over art and the art suffers even though they may have a great message. Some people put their art over the content and that may win for the moment. It may be the summer jam, but it doesn't live with people for the rest of their lives. If you make great content and art and hold them up high, it stands the test of time."

18. He doesn't want his music to be limited to people of faith. He explains, "If someone feeds a homeless man, you don't know why he's doing it, but the homeless person still appreciates the food. People want to feel what you believe and not just hear it. So let's talk about fatherlessness, let's talk about incarceration. Let's celebrate a relationship or a marriage or a child being born. Let's talk about social issues. Sure, I have a paradigm that I see the world through, but we all relate to those things and that's where we connect." And with the look of a man with a plan, he leans in and whispers, "When you influence the influential that's when you can begin to change culture."

19. Lecrae co-headlined the highest selling tour in the country, "Winter Jam." According to Pollstar, "Winter Jam" sold over 557,000 tickets making it the #1 tour in the country beating major tours by Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Disney on Ice and Elton John.

20. Lecrae also finds time to mentor professional athletes. ESPN reported: "It turns out that Lecrae, who specializes in Christian hip-hop and recently dropped his sixth studio album, "Gravity," is highly sought after by players around the league -- and even team chaplains -- for his prayer sessions. Lecrae either does them at the arena or stadium or the visiting team's hotel, typically starting two hours before the game and lasting 45 minutes. They're usually scheduled when Lecrae is in a certain city performing, or when there's a game featuring a team with whom he has a good relationship. Since initiating his chapel services last year, free of charge, he's developed relationships with Team USA men's basketball and the Kings and Timberwolves in the NBA; the Giants, Falcons and Buccaneers in the NFL; and the Yankees, Braves, White Sox and Diamondbacks in MLB."

21. Lecrae's personal friendships with athletes such as Jeremy Lin and Bubba Watson and many others is a testament to his philosophy and belief in positively influencing the influential.

22. He was born and raised by his single mother in Southern Houston, Texas.

23. Lecrae never met his father, who ended up becoming a drug addict.

24. In the song "Good, Bad, Ugly", Moore reveals that when he was almost eight, a female baby sitter sexually molested him, an incident which Moore believes distorted his view of sexuality, influencing his later promiscuous lifestyle.

25. Experiencing abuse and neglect during his childhood, Moore used his ability to rap as a source of significance.

26. According to Moore, his grandmother would not allow him to watch rap music videos on television, but he would sneak in late at night.

27. After being shown a gun by his uncle, Moore began looking up to gangsters and turned to a life of crime.

28. According to CNN, he became a drug dealer and used the Bible that his grandmother gave him as a good luck charm.

29. After being arrested for drug possession, the officer saw the Bible and let Moore go on a promise that he would agree to live by it.

30. Lecrae eventually turned from drugs to alcohol consumption and a party lifestyle and became a "misfit of a person."

31. He has described himself during this period as a thrill-seeker, he would pull stunts such as jumping from a third-story building, and gained the nickname "Crazy 'Crae".

32. Encouraged by his concerned mother to read his Bible, Moore said that "I remember ripping the pages out of the Bible and throwing it on the floor. I don't want this Bible. I couldn't wrap my hands around this being true or real."

33. At age 17, his personal, financial, and relationship troubles convinced him that he was at a "dead end." Wanting to do what he considered the mature thing, through the influence of his grandmother, he desired to start attending church.

34. A girl Moore attended high school with was there, and she invited him to a Bible study, where he met Darragh, his future wife.

35. Moore was surprised to find that the members of the Bible study "were just people like me. They read the same books and listened to the same music. Their character was just different. They were loving and that's really what drew me in."

36. Moore says that it was at age 19 that he finally decided to live for God, though "it wasn't overnight" and he "spent a lot of time making bad decisions."

37. Five years after his conversion, Moore teamed up with Ben Washer to found Reach Records, and at the age of 25 he released his first album, Real Talk.

38. The following year it was re-released by Cross Movement Records and reached No. 29 on the Billboard Gospel Albums chart, staying on the chart for 12 weeks. The album later received a nomination at the 2007 Stellar Awards.

39. In 2005, Moore co-founded the non-profit organization ReachLife Ministries, which equips local Christian leaders with tools, media, curriculum, and conferences that are based on the teachings of the Bible and relevant to hip-hop culture.

40. On October 8, 2008, Moore's third album, Rebel, entered the Billboard charts at No. 60 with 9,800 units sold and topped the Billboard Gospel Album charts for two weeks, the first hip-hop album to do so. It also charted at No. 2 on the Christian Albums chart and No. 15 on the Top Independent charts.

41. In 2009, the album received a nomination at the 40th Dove Awards, as did the Flame song "Joyful Noise", which featured Lecrae and John Reilly.

42. 2009 also saw Moore's first film role, when he appeared in the documentary Uprise Presents: Word from the Street by the UK-based TV channel OHTV.

43. On February 16, 2012, Rapzilla announced that Moore was preparing to release his first mixtape, Church Clothes. On May 3, 2012, Moore premiered his music video for the title-track of his Church Clothes mixtape online on XXL.

44. On April 27, Moore announced that his next album, Gravity, was to be released in late 2012, and recording sessions began in May. On June 21, 2012 Moore appeared live at the Apple Store in Chicago for Black Music Month. The release date for Gravity, September 4, 2012, as well as the album artwork was announced on July 19, 2012 via Rapzilla.

45. Moore currently resides in Atlanta since relocating there from Memphis in 2009, and is married to Darragh Moore.

46. The couple has three children together.

47. Lecrae is a graduate of University of North Texas.

48. In an interview with Hip Hop DX, Lecrae stated that Clipse member No Malice sought him out as a spiritual advisor.

49. In 2011, 116 Clique and ReachLife Ministries, both headed by Moore, launched a media campaign entitled Man Up, intended to mentor male urban youths on fatherhood and biblical manhood. It features concert tours and a curriculum centered on a short film and a studio album, both titled Man Up, and since 2012 has also featured a string of conference events.

50. In May 2013, Moore partnered with NBA player Dwyane Wade, filmmaker Art Hooker, and Joshua DuBois, the former head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under the Obama administration, to create the national media campaign This Is Fatherhood, an initiative "devoted to restoring America's commitment to healthy fatherhood."

Source: facebook.com/Lecrae, Wikipedia.org