What's it like being one of the hottest Christian acts in America?
DC Talk gets honest about... THE EGO THANG

They've hammed it up for a full-page photo in People magazine. They've strutted their stuff on The Arsenio Hall Show, The Tonight Show and Entertainment Tonight. Their Free at Last has mined gold--and won them a Grammy. They are DC Talk! They're hot. Very hot. You know it. I know it. And it kind of makes ya wonder, How do these guys keep their egos from blowin' up like the Goodyear blimp on steriods?

It ain't easy sometimes. "It seems like about every day we argue over who should sing a verse first," admits DC Talker Michael Tait. "Right there. That is ego." Michael and the guys were making their comments over lunch. Before the rockin' and rappin' trio headed off for their 55-city tour this spring, I caught up with them at a Christian retreat center in Adrian, Michigan.

Why Adrian "In the Middle of Nowhere" Michigan?" "We're here to prepare for our tour and to have a spiritual retreat," says Toby McKeehan, who serves as the group's leader. "We could obviously rehearse in our Nashville studio, but I'm not sure we could spiritually retreat there. Maybe we could, but our friends are there, there's so much going on, there are so many expectations. It's the whole atmosphere--the whole music scene. Here, away from it all, we're more open to doing some soul searching, to spending some extra time in God's Word."

"There is a reason for us to make music and perform," stresses Kevin Smith, who co-writes with Toby and plays keyboard. "I don't want to belittle the value of music as an art. Yet our music is just a tool that God has given us to communicate the gospel." This is not to say these DC guys don't really get into performing. They do. They really admit it. They also admit they need to , well, keep their priorities together; after all, it would be a shame if their heads couldn't fit through the stage door. Being close friends, they say, helps them keep their egos in check.

"We're accountable to each other," says Kevin, his blue eyes staring intently. "We're like brothers. If someone comes up to me and says, 'You're are the mostamazing group in the world,' and I start taking that to heart, then I need Toby and Michael to straighten me out." "I have always thought I was a pretty nice guy," adds Michael, who pauses as if searching for just the write words. "But I have a lot of pride in my life. It took Toby and Kevin to really bring it out of me." "I think it was God's plan for us to be friends first--before we became DC Talk," says Toby. "It was not like some record company came to each of us and said 'You are a good singer, you are a good singer, you are a good rapper, let's turn you into a group.' If that were the case, we would probably not be as accountable to each other. No reason to be; we'd just be in the 'business' together. But we are friends now and we were friends before we became DC Talk. We were accountable to each other from the beginning."

Sometimes, though, they'll say, it's a shared experience that gets them thinking about their priorities. About their occasional over-charged egos. There was, for instance, that visit to the Michigan Reformatory, shortly after their arrival in Adrian.

Why a maximum security prison? Explains Kevin: "We were working on The Hardway video, and wanted to show that all of us are in prison in our own individual ways. I might be imprisoned by my mind, by my thoughts, by my lust or by my greed." Sounded like a pretty good idea, yet there was a 'minor hitch.' The prisoners. "When we got there, I was hit really hard by how the prisoners responded," remembers Michael. "I talked to a guy they called 'Blood.' He said all the guys thought we were just going to use them like they were animals.

Or like commercial props." Adds Toby: "We had to ask ourselves a tough question: 'Are we using these guys and the prison as a prop? Or are we going to hang out with these guys, actually witness to them, love them as Christ would?" They wondered: Are we using these prisoners for [our] own gain--just to put together a cool video? It was the ego thing again. They struggled with their feelings. With their egos. Then, after a day of hard video work, it was time to leave. Almost. "Before we left, we gave a concert for the prisoners," says Toby. "And for us it really was a concert; it was a time when we could share our hearts with an audience...I think many prisoners changed their attitudes towards us." Adds Micheal, "Blood told me, 'Getting to hear you talk, and hear you express how you feel, and why you are really here, gave me alittle bit of hope.'"

"The experience really got to us," admits Toby. "It made me realize how true it is: You cage be in a cage, whether you're in or out of prison. You can also be free, in or out of prison. If a man's heart is free, no bars or guards can hold him in."

As for those egos? Yeah. They're still there. The Talk guys are only human, right? Yet when those egos are under control--when their priorities are straight--God can't help buy through the, well, "prison walls." It's true for DC Talk. It's true for you and me. Yeah, free at last.