To The Extreme
From dc talk to solo expressions to his own label,
musical wunderkind Toby McKeehan pushes back boundaries
in search of community.

2001 © CCM Magazine
By: Gregory Rumburg

What’s next?"

That’s the catch phrase of Josiah Bartlett, the fictional U.S. president played by Martin Sheen on NBC’s "The West Wing."

It’s easy to imagine Toby McKeehan asking the same question as dc talk’s solo season evolves: What’s next? Yes, he does have his own record coming out, probably in late October, tentatively titled Momentum (ForeFront). But what’s next for McKeehan is more about pursuing an agenda than an album. He’s moving from his de facto role as dc talk leader and stepping up his activity as a Christian music industry leader.

For McKeehan, that means mainstreaming hip-hop influences in the arena where dc talk found so much success, furthering Christian music’s quest to be a culturally relevant art form.

An exceptional blend of musical creativity and business savvy, McKeehan believes passionately that hip-hop provides an opportunity to build stronger concepts of community. And it doesn't take a biblical scholar to know that community-living with an acute awareness of others' needs-is pervasive throughout the Bible. It moves us away from selfishness to Christ-like selflessness.

It's an important agenda, one that McKeehan seems ready to tackle head-on. Appearing trim and with the constitution of a man who's rested well and played plenty of golf lately, he exclaims, "I'm in the greatest place!" It's in stark contrast to some 18 months ago when, as the last stage light cooled on dc talk's "Supernatural" tour, Toby found himself burned out.

"I definitely questioned whether I wanted to go on. I had a one-year-old child at home. I had the lure of Gotee Records," Toby says of the record company he owns. "I could just jump into that and dig in for the rest of my life."

So while bandmates Michael Tait and Kevin Max secured their licenses for flying solo, Toby remained grounded. "I didn't want to do a record just because I could do a record. I wanted passion and desire."

He worked to sign rock band Relient K to a Gotee recording contract and executive produced Jennifer Knapp's Lay It Down. He enjoyed being at home, a husband to Amanda and father to 2 1/2-year-old Truett. "I love when he says, 'That's a birdie, Daddy!' It's like, 'Oh my gosh, he just figured out that's a bird! I live for that, like I just saw a bird for the first time!"

Professionally, the distance from performing as dc talk allowed McKeehan to do what he does so well: capture a vision., In his mind's eye it was time to dust off the hip-hop influences that were largely shelved during the process of making dc talk's Supernatural. "I miss Free at Last!" Toby says. "You can print that as large as you want! I miss the Free at Last era."

McKeehan says he still has hip-hop in his blood, a pulse first found in his younger days growing up in a Washington D.C. suburb listening to acts like Run D.M.C., Sugar Hill and P.M. Dawn. "That's why I got in this game-because I loved hip-hop music. I heard it and fell in love with it as a kid."

Admittedly, what McKeehan creates is technically experimental hip-hop, as hard music, pop and rock are generously woven into the mix. "I don't think hip-hop heads would embrace me because I am a pop musician," he says. "If you want to battle me with your rhymes, you're gonna school me every time!"

But hip-hop is the right form for the times, he believes.

"When I am writing lyrics, they are written with street sensibility-I don't mean the inner cities, but I am talking about everyday language. It's twisted and flipped up or it's said in a tongue-in-cheek way. With that type of vocal delivery, it's just funny enough or it's just abstract enough to where it takes people back and makes them see things from a different perspective."

Like a plain-speaking politician, McKeehan outlines the benefits to Christian music embracing hip-hop.

"I chose to take elements of hip-hop and try to lift people and try to cause them to think about where they stand in race relations, to cause them to think about who God is, to think about freeing themselves a little and having a good time. I know that sounds very simple, but I think there are some pretty tightly would people out there, especially some Christian music listeners," McKeehan says with a respectful smile. Christian music "seems so serious. I mean, life is serious, but I do think that God wants us to enjoy the things He's given us, like music.

"When I turn on the radio and I listen to a typical Christian music CHR station, there is some pretty intense stuff being thrown out there. I think that is great. But I don't know that I se the other side represented [which is] there are things about this life that God has given us to enjoy. He has given us life, and He has given us mercy, grace, forgiveness. All those things should create a joy in us that is unspeakable, and I'm trying my best to speak that in song."

Because of the collaborative culture of hip-hop, the musical style lends itself to community building, Toby says, "[With hip-hop] you might hear four or five artists on one song, labels are sharing people, and you are making music together. It's very communal. I want that... I want to have a good time with people that believe the way I do and express themselves the way I do-people that are passionate about God and music all in the same sentence."

It's not enough to build community, though. The community needs a life-giving consciousness.

In his song "Extreme Days," included on the dc talk: solo EP, Toby writes, "Mr. Therapist, why did I go this direction?/God had a plan to end all my schemes/I had a dream, He said to be... extreme." McKeehan's desire to be extreme stems from what he sees as a culture out of control and the need to respond with an attitude that will get noticed.

Toby explains, "When you look outside your door, you see what people are putting up with today and what is making our society tick, or not tick. When people are making a plan to go in and shoot fellow students, almost for fun, almost for the rush of it, you are talking about extremes. The moral line, the socially conscience line, the ethical line-ti seems to be pushing further and further out. I think these are extreme days.

"The way you get the extreme's attention is to be extremely passionate about whatever you are passionate about... I am passionate about God, about Jesus, and what His influences do to me. It's what accepting God's grace has done for my life."

But his vision entails more than a passion for his faith, Toby sees his version of being extreme as part of the call to community, reaching out to others to make a difference, an idea in stark contrast to societal norms. "Everything is telling us to, 'Look out for No. 1, baby!' If we are all doing that, though, it just isn't going to work. Socially, we need to be looking out for others, loving them and putting their needs above our own. That's an old message, but it's like we could be beaten over the head with it every five minutes, and we'd still walk in the other four minutes struggling with it."

All indications are that McKeehan will model the community idea on Momentum. As evidenced on the other EP tracks, that means hearing from players like Jon Knox, Otto Price, DJ Maj and Michael-Anthony Taylor (a.k.a. Mooki). And Toby's second cut on the EP, "Somebody's Watching," introduces McKeehan's latest prodigy, Joanna Valencia, the female vocalist featured on the track.

"There is a perspective I am trying to get right now. I do have a family of artistry that I love, and on a hip-hop record you access the family. When it is time to show you a window into my life, it involves a lot more than just Toby and his thoughts. It involves a lot more people."

CCM