Kris Kdub Talks About Christian Hip Hop Going Woke

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the

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Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris, and we do have an interview today with a special guest,

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Chris. And by the way, I should have asked this beforehand. Your last name, I don't wanna botch it, but it's

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K -Dub is how you, is that like your hip hop name or is that your actual last name? Yeah, just social, but last name is

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Williams. That's different than K -Dub. So your hip hop name is kind of Chris K -Dub.

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Right, right. All right, so we're gonna explore that because you've kind of gone from Christian hip hop to Calvinism and apologetics really, to now most of your content is on social justice and kind of how it's being pushed in the church.

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And there's a few of us that are talking about this, but we all have different ways of approaching it.

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So one of the things that I really appreciated about your content is how you mix your hip hop and your kind of your artist side with what's going on in the church, apologetics and the social justice movement.

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And I think the first one I saw was your Wakanda video a few years, maybe a year ago or so. Yeah. And so now you've put out a few.

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I think the last one I saw was, I don't know if it's called I'm black, but yeah. Yeah, you talk about how you're black, but you're wearing like a

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MAGA hat and stuff. So I'm trying to confuse people there, but yeah.

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So I want to just get your story a little bit, kind of like how did you arrive at where you're at today?

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And then we'll talk about how people can find you and what you're trying to accomplish and stuff.

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So walk me through the progression here. Like, did you get saved as an adult?

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Were you raised in the church? I was raised by a single mother and she was very adamant about having us in church.

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I hated church growing up though. I kind of was in the, grew up in a very kind of Pentecostal word of faith kind of environment.

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And I became a Christian at the age of 19. So about 12 years ago, and that was kind of the first church

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I kind of went to, the word of faith kind of church. I mean, that's just kind of what I knew. I believe

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I was a genuine believer, but that's kind of just the comfortability I had with church.

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And so I went there and the Lord kind of exposed my eyes to the word of faith kind of being a heretical movement.

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That kind of, it is a heretical movement. And man, just the journey kind of right into reform theology.

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Man, it was everything I needed. Just the - How did that happen? Like, how did you like make that transition?

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Funny enough. I mean, talk about me just doing music. I was doing music, performing a lot, doing just music.

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And I was heavily influenced by Shyland if you know of Shyland.

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Shyland was reformed. I was, you know, Timothy Brindle. I remember just listening to a song of his where he was talking about limited atonement and it finally clicked for me.

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Like he was saying, Jesus did not die for everybody. To me, that was like, I never heard anybody say that.

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And so it kind of led me into a journey of reading a lot of books.

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I read A .W. Pink's, The Sovereignty of God immediately. And I was like,

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I was the only one I knew who believed. I was like agreeing with everything he was saying. And I was like, I'm the only one that believes this, you know, like me and Pink over here, you know?

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And so it just led to a whole nother world of people that I've met and was like, yo, this is historic, you know what

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I mean? And so that's kind of my journey into Calvinism. Funny enough was just Christian, doing what

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I love, music, Christian hip hop. So yeah. Gotcha. Well, so one of the things is interesting you mentioned that is

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I was never huge into like the hip hop scene and Christianity, but I was aware of it somewhat.

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I had some friends who were really into it. I remember once I was working with a friend of mine and he goes, hey, would you mind if I put on a Shilin album?

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I'm like, sure. And in this album, Paul Washer featured as, and I think

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Shilin does this quite a bit and a lot of hip hop artists do, they'll infuse like a pastor preaching with their music.

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But I thought, wow, like that's pretty, it impressed me a little bit because I was like, this is kind of deep, some of this stuff.

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This isn't, it's so different than what you would get when you turn on Christian radio and Christian contemporary kind of shallow heavenly latte stuff.

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But the thing that has surprised me a little bit, and maybe it shouldn't, maybe if I was more into it and I knew more about it, it wouldn't surprise me, but it did just because I was watching from a distance is that some of these guys who seemed like they were pretty solid, at least for the most part theologically in the hip hop world,

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Christian hip hop, went so hard social justice. And Shilin's kind of like one of those people that I thought like, okay, this guy seems from what

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I heard that he's at least got his foot in the right doctrine. But then all of a sudden, I think it was the

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Gospel Coalition, he had written the George Floyd and me article. And I was like, what in the world is going on with this guy?

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And so maybe, a lot of people have this question. And since you were kind of in that scene, I know you had, it looks like two albums at least before you even started talking about apologetics and that stuff on your

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YouTube channel. Like, well, how do you make sense of that? Like what happened or did something happen? Man, that's a great question.

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And I've thought about it and I'm not really sure there's something that we can really point to because,

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I mean, maybe it was all the, I think the Trayvon Martin situation really kind of highlighted some things that may have been there all the time, but it just never got broadened up because I can remember everybody being on board and loving the

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Doctrines of Grace, loving presuppositional apologetics, loving a lot of these doctrines. And then next thing you know, you turn around and some of these doctrines being called whiteness and like, where did, so I don't know if there's a specific event.

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It seems more so an evolution of stuff rather than one thing. If I can speak in on the situation,

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I don't know if it was one event, but rather maybe the Trayvon Martin situation was the start of the evolution for many people because, yeah, that's when

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I just started noticing it and started having, like many of us, like, man, what is this?

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We were on the page just a second ago. Yeah, there was a lot of excitement, I remember, around.

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It wasn't just, it was bigger than just reformed hip hop, if you want to call it that, but it was like this whole neo -Calvinist and young reform scene 10 years ago.

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It was, there was this thought that, you know, this was the next kind of big thing, like almost like a revival was starting, kind of.

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And some people talked about it that way. And then to see so many of these people that were supposed to lead that revival being sucked in.

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And I think of, even in the Christian hip hop world, like Lecrae and Andy, I think it's

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Mineo, if I'm pronouncing it right, like these guys are embracing, on some level, homosexuality and normalization of it.

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And these were guys just like, what, like six years, seven years ago that they were being even positively talked about by reform pastors and stuff.

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So it's, for a lot of people who are looking at this, the wind was kind of taken out of their sails. And what the question they have is like, how could someone who seems so theologically on point, who understood so much and maybe not everything, but they understood some basic things that a lot of people get wrong.

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They just be sucked into this social justice movement. And since you, you were someone,

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I know you didn't have the platform they did, but you were kind of in that scene, recording your own hip hop and stuff. I thought maybe you'd have some insight on that.

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Cause you didn't switch. You didn't go over to that side. You kept doing what you always been doing.

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It seems like at least. Right. It was something I was wrestling with more so behind closed doors many years ago.

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Because there was, you're talking about like kind of this resurgence of two worlds, right?

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Like Calvinism and hip hop kind of, hip hop kind of introducing a lot of young people, young black people into Calvinism and reform theology as a whole and other theological concepts to where, man, it was an amazing, refreshing time, just kind of reflecting on a lot of that.

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I know for me, I mean, that's how I became reformed. So for me, it's a very like, it's very close to me because it's how

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I came to grow in my faith and how I met and heard of so many theologically sound pastors. And now to hear so many people kind of,

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I mean, when you hear Lacrae talks about it, he kind of like regrets a lot of that. And so to me, it's like, how could you regret such a sweet time of learning in depth truths and people you met and pastors into now you're kind of going into theological liberalism.

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But you don't regret that, you're kind of embracing that. Well, it reminds me a little,

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I saw this interview, you probably saw it, Bill Roden, a sportscaster, ESPN or sports writer, and he's being interviewed on CBS.

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I think it was yesterday or the day before, two days ago. And they're asking him about the Olympics and he's like, you know, it shouldn't be about winning.

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We should just, it should be about self -reflection and we should not expect the American basketball team to win.

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And, you know, the flag is very offensive and nationalism is terrible. And basically like everything the

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Olympics is about, he's like, I can't enjoy it anymore. It's bad, it's wrong. It should just be about activism and self -reflection.

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And this is a guy who covered like five, I think he said five Olympics. And he enjoyed, he said he enjoyed the opening ceremony, but he doesn't anymore.

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And it's the same thing like with Lecrae and some of these guys who get into social justice, it just ruins everything. It's just like all those good times they had, all the things they enjoyed, all the, you know, the solid, even theology in their cases that they partook in, it's like they can look back at all of those things that they enjoyed at the time and thought were so good and then just trash them.

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And that's, it's such a remarkable thing. It grieves my heart to see people do this, but yet it's happening.

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And so, well, you didn't go down that path though. And you've actually taken it upon yourself to argue against that, both in your hip hop videos, social justice that is, and in just some of the commentary you provide on YouTube.

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Tell me a little bit about that and what made you decide to do that? Cause that's not exactly an arena most people today want to step into, even how charged it is.

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Yeah, I was very quiet for a while. I would say for a long time, having a lot of conversation behind closed doors.

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And man, I just felt the need to, because one, I didn't see a lot of people doing it.

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I didn't see a lot of black people doing it. And so for me, it was just providing, you know, hopefully a helpful voice in on some of these things that maybe people haven't thought through.

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And man, just kind of hearing, I know you had him on your show recently, your podcast, but Bodhi Baka, man, he was very helpful to kind of step out there and to, man, just to be bold with the truth.

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Hey, you know, I know he says a lot like, hey, I'm not really concerned about being liked, but you know, we have to just spread the truth.

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And so for me, it was, you know, if I care for people, if I don't want them going through falsehood,

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I saw how dangerous a lot of the social justice claims are and is. Man, I just felt like, man,

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I had to speak out. I lost a lot of friends. I lost a lot of people that would like, you know, rock with me, support me, you know, do all those things.

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But, you know, at some point I was just like, hey, to me it was like, I'd be a bit of a hypocrite because, you know,

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I kind of have the same experience with Calvinism. When I became reformed, I lost a lot of friends and, but I spoke up unashamed because I saw it in the

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Bible. And so I would be somewhat of a hypocrite to not have the same kind of thought with the social justice stuff, if I thought it was falsehood and just to be quiet about it, you know?

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And so to me, that's kind of been the mantra of, it seems to be the, what the

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Lord has constantly been doing, me speaking out on unpopular issues. You know, when I became, when I was in word of faith and I came out,

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I spoke out against that. When I, you know, when I was synergistic, you know, became reformed,

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I spoke out against that. And it's like, here's another thing in my face that is like, am I going to be quiet about it or am

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I speak out against, you know? Well, I hope you don't have to make one of these transitions again, because I know it sounds like it's quite difficult.

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And I understand to some extent, I've had that myself with people that I thought, well, you don't believe this stuff.

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And then I find out they do, or they were emotionally kind of suckered into it. I wanted to ask you about, you know, you have videos going back a few years.

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You even have one of like Eric Mason. I don't know if you took that or someone else did. Did you take that one? No, I didn't take that.

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That was someone else. Yeah, talking to some black Hebrew Israelites and making some good points, actually. There was this sort of this time when you could, at least it seemed like you could have fellowship with some of these guys.

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But now there's huge divisions, or to take the title off Voti's book, fault lines that have formed.

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What, in your mind, is the issue with social justice? Can you articulate maybe like, what have you seen with friends who have gone down this path?

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Theologically, what's the concern that you have that has inspired you to speak out against it publicly? Man, that's a good question, because I think there's many, and you know, if I was to reflect more,

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I would probably be able to come up with more issues. But a lot of what

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I've seen is it attacks the peace of the church to where, I mean, we've already mentioned it a few times, where just a few years ago, we were at peace, you know, black and white.

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It didn't really matter, you know, the ethnicity, but then this kind of new ideology comes up and, you know, you hear things of whiteness and things like that and, you know, reparations.

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And, you know, so to me, it really attacks the peace of the church. I think more dangerous forms of it attacks a good view of the doctrine of justification because there's almost this work, there is this work you have to do in order to have kind of peace with God and your man, fellow man.

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And so it really attacks some key doctrines, I believe, when you really get into it of, like I said, justification, the peace of the church, you know, some forms of social justice kind of is soft on homosexuality.

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They're soft on, you know, women pastors. And so just, you know, to see some men,

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I mean, we've talked about it, go from reformed, solid in their faith to,

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I mean, I think about, I learned the doctrine of church membership from Kibiti. And when

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I first became reformed and I had never heard of joining of the body like that.

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And matter of fact, I wrote a song about it because I was so influenced by it, you know, called the church. And he was very helpful in that, you know, when

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I was first becoming reformed and then just to see kind of his views now, like, man, it was very, it's very, for me, a lot of it's very sad because I learned from guys like Chandler to BD Mason, you know,

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Piper, to some extent, a lot of these men to where I respected theologically and to see them kind of cave in on many doctrines.

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For me, it's like, wow, man, like what happened to you? You know, you were, I felt like Paul, you were running well, you know?

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Yeah, well, I mean, like you referenced Paul, the New Testament is filled with stories like this. So I always think like, okay, maybe

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I shouldn't be that surprised. Like this happens. We were told that people would also, false teachers would come in and, you know, and even with the 12 apostles, there was a

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Judas. So it's not like this isn't out of the ordinary, but it still feels like, it takes you like a deer in the headlights a little when it happens.

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I wanted to ask you on a positive note, if you've seen fruit from what you've been doing as far as people listening and understanding, wait, hold on,

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I was going down the social justice road. Now I'm realizing, okay, maybe this isn't the best road. I know that we're gonna reach, sometimes our audiences will overlap, but each of us who do this, like AD Robles and Edwin Ramirez and whoever else is doing this, we're all gonna reach different audiences for whatever reason.

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And that's just how it works. There's nothing wrong with that. I would assume though, for you, you're probably reaching to some extent an audience that I'm not gonna reach.

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You're probably reaching some people who are maybe part of that hip hop scene or just black people in general, who when they're not gonna listen to, or at least they're not gonna start by listening to someone like myself talk about this, but they will turn on you for a few minutes.

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Have you seen any fruit from that at all? Oh man, there's countless stories, man.

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Matter of fact, I just heard, a brother called me in yesterday and just told me how influential that I was.

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Cause he was saying he was more pragmatic when it came to this stuff. He was just kind of going with the flow because he just hoped it would work, and hoped it would bring about some positive change in the church.

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And he was just telling me how I was very instrumental with just not being a pragmatist, but just doing what the

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Bible would say. I get constant messages just from people, even trying to take the time, like just messaging me just like, hey,

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I'm confused, help me out, give me some sources, can you help me?

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I get plenty of messages like that. And so for me, man, there's been much fruit that the

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Lord has brought out just from speaking out to where I would never expect to kind of run into some of the lanes

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I have ran into and speak with some of the people I have spoken to. Recently, I did a video about Lecrae and his kind of capitulation.

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And funny enough, he actually responded on YouTube and I would have never thought I would have had a chance for one of my videos to reach his ears.

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And so even though I'm sure he disagrees, I thought that was pretty cool that one of my videos got the opportunity to hit his ears.

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Oh, that's really awesome. That is, it truly is. Where do you wanna take this? Do you wanna keep just doing this as kind of a side thing or what are you thinking?

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Wherever the Lord kind of opens up the doors, I'm willing to go and willing to speak out on.

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Yeah, I just wanna be kind of free to do it wherever he wants. I don't really have any plans.

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Like I need to do this with the speaking or just whatever doors he's opened up, I'm willing to go.

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Well, you still do the hip hop thing every now and then, right? So in the videos are getting higher quality,

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I've noticed. So are you thinking about another album or anything like that? Yeah, I would love to do some other stuff.

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Right now it's a busy season. And so I definitely would love to get back to releasing some more music.

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I do have some stuff on the Agenda 2 release though. Yeah, well, good.

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What's your favorite? Like if someone who doesn't listen to hip hop regularly, okay, who's like me?

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Which one would you say, hey, go listen to this one. This is the one that I think you should start with. Oh man, like song wise?

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Yeah, like a song. Oh man. I think a lot of people would like the church, the song, the church.

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That's kind of like, I think that was the first song I made after becoming reformed.

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And yeah, just the doctrine of the church. I really care about that doctrine.

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I'm for the church. And to see when men or women talk bad about God's bride,

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I get a little upset. So that song right there is close to me. Yeah, amen, amen.

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No, I'm the same way. That's really why we're doing this. I think everyone who I mentioned before who's trying to say, hey, wait, hold on, stop.

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This social justice stuff isn't good. That's probably the main driving force. And I know we love the

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United States. We love our homes. We don't want those things being disrupted in the sense that hierarchies are turned on their head and there's burning down cities and looting.

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We don't like any of this stuff that's come about. But ultimately I think it is this theological thing.

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It is, hold on, my brothers and sisters in Christ are being affected by this. This is happening within the four walls of my church.

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And that's more disturbing than even in our country. Absolutely. So yeah, it's good to know that that's kind of your motive.

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I know that's mine. And what else? Tell me about where people can find you.

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If there's any closing thoughts or a message you'd have for people, what would it be? Yeah, they can find me on Twitter and YouTube at underscore

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K -D -U -V -T -R -U, Kdubtru. Man, I would just tell people, man, just stick close to the

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Bible. Believe in the Bible in times and days like this is always difficult because, you know, like I said, you could, you know, believe in the

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Bible. You can always tell people who love God's word, man, just how either passionate about something or when people start shifting their views, like will people start shifting in those times?

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And so my mantra has been stay close to the Bible, know God's word, stick around people that love

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God's word as well, you know, because no one's invincible to falling away or, you know, falling into a possessive or falling into some heretical views.

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Like, I mean, that's, I think that's just an over -reliance on self if you think that. So sticking around other godly men and women who also love

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God's word, I think is important, which, you know, should be happening in your local church. Yeah. And so, yeah, man, just loving

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God's word, man. Keep loving God's word. That's what I would encourage anybody to do. Stay in God's word, listen to things that will challenge you, you know, to grow.

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Don't do, I would just stay stagnant, you know? And so that's kind of been something I've always tried to implement in my life.

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So I would encourage others to do as well. Amen. You got a favorite preacher or anything like that you'd want people to listen to or?

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Man, I had some sweet times early in my reform life listening to John MacArthur and Steve Lawson.

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And so I tell people, you know, I'm not a dispensationalist but John MacArthur is my favorite

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Bible teacher. I mean, he's my favorite personally.

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And so, you know, I've listened to hundreds of John MacArthur sermons.

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And so my former pastor, Emilio Ramos. Oh, really? I didn't even know that there was that connection.

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Okay. Yeah, yeah. You know, I recently just moved, you know, to South Texas. And so, but he was my pastor for seven years.

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And so I learned a lot from him just apologetically, you know, and so man, yeah, he was just a good brother to me.

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It's funny enough. So you mentioned his name. I don't, so if he watches this, I don't hope he's not offended.

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I've actually, I don't think I've ever listened to a sermon by him. I don't really know who he is, except for the fact that his wife.

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Yeah. Trish, right? Yes. Used to be on a Wretched radio. I don't know if she still is.

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And I would listen to Wretched all the time. And the Fish with Trish section where they would, you know, she'd have a cell phone and give it to someone and Todd Friel would talk to him about the gospel.

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That's how I know the husband. I don't, just through Trish, but anyway. Hey, don't worry. That's how a lot of people know him too.

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Yeah, so funny enough. But all right, well, cool. So listen to John MacArthur and then go to YouTube and Twitter.

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And you can find Chris K -Dub and the, and there's a lot of videos you're putting out.

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Looks like, what, one every week or so, something like that. Yeah, I try to do like one a week at least.

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And there's a lot of stuff here. I mean, you talk about everything from Barnabas Piper and Lecrae and just Black Lives Matter in general.

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So yeah, there's a lot of stuff here. And so I just encourage people, go check that out and share it too.

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If you find a video that you think is helpful, don't be ashamed to share it on social media with your friends.

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I know that can be kind of scary sometimes, but sometimes, you know, that's the thing that can get through to someone when they see, oh wait, this guy explains it well, or this guy can communicate with me and in ways that other people haven't been able to get through.

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So check out Chris K -Dub and that's all I got. Oh, one more thing.

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I forgot to ask you this. Support. I should always remember this. I'm bad about it with myself.

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I usually don't say it. Is there a place people can go to support you financially or otherwise, prayer or something?

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Yeah, if they go to the YouTube, I have links there for Patreon.

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But for me, man, just watching the videos and sharing that, that is the support for me.

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And like you said, the praying for me. So if you're just watching and sharing, to me, that's way bigger than giving money, you know, because I am way more concerned about people hearing what

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I'm doing, what I believe is truthful and sincere. And so if you don't have money to give, don't worry.

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There's other ways to support. You know, I'm all for that. I'm assuming though, the quality of the hip hop videos goes up as the

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Patreon support increases. I could be wrong, but. Yeah, that definitely does help, you know? And so, yeah, you know, more support could mean more videos and things like that, so.

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All right, well, on that note, I'm gonna let you go. Hey, I appreciate you sharing a little bit about your testimony, yourself, what you're doing, and hopefully we can do this again at some point in the future.