Exposed Vocals Interviews Lyrical Praise

Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?

Lyrical Praise: I grew up in a small town in Jeannette, PA, outside of Pittsburgh, and Justin grew up in Brooklyn. We decided to become artists after a song that we did for the listeners of our podcast got great reviews and lots of listens on Soundcloud. People were saying it was something they needed to hear and that they were inspired by it to we decided to continue to make a music and working on an Album.

Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?

We honestly came up with the name just based off what we do with our music. Our main focus is spreading the word of God through music, so we figured this was the best name that fit. We wanted our name to be something where soon as people see it, they know what we are about and what they are about to listen to. Our inspiration honestly is simply just spreading the word of God through our music.

Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?

Lyrical Praise: Online music sharing is awesome. We will ALWAYS give our music away for free. The reason is we will never charge someone to listen to the word of God, which is what we do through our music. I think if we charged people to hear our music that would be like a Pastor charging people to enter his charge. This will never be about money, we do this for God, and the people who want to hear the word of God.

Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?

Lyrical Praise: Never get relaxed. (laughs) We learned that the hard way. You have to grind and grind to keep moving forward. When we released our album on Easter, we took a month break from music. We were actually planning a year, but when we seen we went from top spots to ranked in the 20-50,000’s in categories we knew we had to get back at it. Set a goal in your mind and do everything in your power to accomplish it.

Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?

Lyrical Praise: We have actually not performed yet. Honestly, we just started making Christian Hip Hop music October of last year, and after taking a month break, starting pushing our music again two weeks ago, and everything has just skyrocketed on our music. Top 100 nationally and globally and number 3 local and regional in PA, so it is just coming at a fast pace right now, although we were asked to perform at a Christian Summer concert next year in Latrobe, PA which I am sure will be a blast.

Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?

Lyrical Praise: Lyrical Praise: Not yet, but that is one of our goals. My touring right now consists of trips to the store with my wife and our three kids (laughs) and Justin will be somewhat touring from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh for our anniversary show end of June for our podcast. That’s all we have so far. (laughs)

Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?

Lyrical Praise: Its all from personal experiences, whether it be past or present. We both have had things happen in our life in the past, and currently, that we can talk about, and speak about how far God has brought us, what God can do for others, and how they can find God the same way we and many others have. Our goal is to inspire. So many people write us or tell us on our show our music inspires them, brought them through hard times, or reignited their faith, and that is what it’s about. The process usually relies on prayer. We pray what message God wants us to carry out, what we need to speak about, we find and lease a beat, and we get to work. If we don’t have that feeling that it’s something God wants us to put out, we just simply won’t. We will never put out anything rushed, or that’s not of Gods will.

Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?

Lyrical Praise: We do! Our reverb account is ReverbNation.com/LyricalPraise and our Twitter is @ThaPrinceOfPA, which will be changed to @LyricalPraise shortly.

Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?

Lyrical Praise: Honestly, nothing. Like, I really don’t listen to much music outside of Christian Hip Hop. I would say coming close would maybe be Kids Bop but that’s for our kids (laughs)

Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?

Lyrical Praise: We would definitely donate first. We did Thanksgiving and Christmas drives to help needy families, mostly out of our own pocket, combined with donations as well. I would personally definitely donate to local churches and homeless shelters. Pastor Roy Aiken in Jeannette, PA and Pastor Eugene of Greensburg, PA have been great mentors and influences through our journey and they would be the first ones I would be seeing to donate. After that, definitely taking care of family. Not going to lie, we would probably definitely go with a nice car and house (laughs) but definitely would have to set ourself up for the future as well with the money we received.

Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?

Lyrical Praise: Right now just a Blue Yeti microphone, and my laptop, same with Justin, although we are in talks to start working with professional producers to finally take our music to the next level.

Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?

Lyrical Praise: Honestly, word of mouth. Our podcast that we do at mixlr.com/werenotdonebelieving is where we started. That’s our first base of promotion, to send our music to our listeners. After that, its Facebook to friends and family, and then all of that directs to our ReverbNation account and Reverb just, it just has a mind of its own, it pretty much promotes for you, and gets your music out there, up the charts, on peoples newsfeeds, etc.

Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?

Lyrical Praise: Wow. Honestly, that is a hard question. Artist wise, I would say Michael Jackson. I think a Lyrical Praise/King of Pop crossover would be awesome! (laughs) but that would be my pick. Anywhere, I would say packing out AT&T stadium, or Madison Square Garden.

Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?

Lyrical Praise: Definitely! We are working on an album that will be released June 20th titled Summer Praise that will feature music with a more, summer, upbeat, dance feel to it, something you can bump in your ride, something you can dance too. We upload all new music as well to our reverbnation account at reverbnation.com/lyricalpraise. We are excited for this new album as just by hearing the songs we are doing versus what we did before, you can tell how much we have growth as individuals, artists, and Christians.

Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

Lyrical Praise: We would be putting our sole focus on our Podcast. We started our podcast to preach the word of God, every Sunday, to people who can’t make it to church, or don’t want to go to a physical church. I think churches these days have become more of a business, Justin’s old church, Hope NYC, was a church he loved, but they quickly became a business, only caring about money, and where they can make their next buck, and I think that has become a big problem with many churches these days. Churches have lost focus on what is important, which is preaching the word of God, and also being afraid to speak the truth, and being to politically correct, that’s where we come in. (laughs)

Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?

Lyrical Praise: This is going to be embarrassing, like REALLY embarrassing. My first album I bought was Britney Spears (laughs) I don’t even want to begin to dive into the heat I got for that. I was a kid and had a major crush on her, Justin’s was Jay Z – The Dynasty Album, so you can see the difference in that. The things going through my head when I bought that album were “I can’t let anyone know I just bought this album” (laughs) But hey, it is what it is I guess.

Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?

Lyrical Praise: Honestly, it’s hard. With a wife and three kids, ages 4,2 and a beautiful 9 month old baby girl, + working 8-10 hours a day, it gets rough. It gets time consuming because then we have to find ways to work around that to do our shows, our music, promotion, etc. So it is very challenging, but by the grace of God we are doing it, and doing it well. My two off days are pretty much my days to spend time with my family for one half of the day, and then work with Justin to create our music, do our shows, etc. Hopefully one day we will both not have to work again!

Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?

Lyrical Praise: A lot! I don’t know where to begin. New album June 20th, summer praise. Big things planned for our Podcast, We’re Not Done Believing, new types of content, Re-Launching our Youtube channel and also launching new shows. We are currently looking for hosts to handle a Christian Youth Podcast on our network, and a Christian Women’s Network as well. And most likely ending the year with our Christmas Album. Yes, a Christian Hip Hop Christmas Album! (laughs) It won’t be corny though, people will want to turn the base up and bump it around their Christmas tree. 2016 will be an awesome year, and we are very excited for everything that has been happening recently. Being covered on websites, our music taking off, this interview, possible performances, it is just a blast right now and I know we couldn’t be happier with how things are going. People told us we would never do this, we would never go anywhere with our music, and that what we do is pointless, and now in 2016, we are proving them wrong, and by the grace of God we will continue to inspire, and spread the word of God through our show, and through music, for many years to come.