Lecrae’s an ‘Anomaly,’ and that’s a good thing

In 2008 Lecrae became the first rapper to top Billboard’s Gospel charts. In 2013 his sixth full-length recording, Gravity, already a No. 3 album on the Billboard 200, won a Grammy for Best Gospel Album. Lecrae would follow that win with his mixtape Church Clothes 2, hosted by Don Cannon (Jeezy, T.I.), and a debut performance at hip-hop festival Rock the Bells. As a result, the Houston-born Atlanta transplant gained mainstream ground but also faced the same question from mainstream outlets: How does he reconcile his Christian faith with hip-hop standards?

As Lecrae prepped his seventh album, Anomaly, some started to get it. “Even I used to say he’s a Christian rapper, but he’s a rapper who is Christian,” veteran rap personality Sway (MTV’s “RapFix Live,” Shade 45 radio show “Sway in the Morning”) has said. Anomaly (out Sept. 9 via Lecrae’s own label, Reach Records) is what longtime fans would expect of Lecrae by now. While sounding as impassioned as LL Cool J, he isn’t afraid to critique certain aspects of both hip-hop (“Nuthin”) and his faith (“Dirty Water”), though he makes known that he does so out of love. But for those who only heard of him recently — NBA player Jeremy Lin did tweet about its release — it should help show why that distinction is key.

Anomaly is an underdog story. In the album’s dramatic opener, “Outsiders,” the aggressive Lecrae resolves to pursue greatness, despite being an unlikely hero: “I really can’t tell if I’m overdressed, if I’m underdressed/If I’m underpaid or just overstressed/If I’m cynical or just over this.”

And, somewhat to be expected, the risk pays off. The album’s closer, “Messengers,” is a starry-eyed, Coldplay-sized victory lap, in which Lecrae sounds utterly relieved to have beaten the odds. Such moments of grandeur are impressive in scale, though, for anyone who has seen a summer blockbuster, they also lend to the progression of the album a slight sense of predictability.

Anomaly truly comes alive when Lecrae dives into specifics. While backed by horns that seemingly pay homage to “SpottieOttieDopaliscious,” the title track’s mere mention of him listening to Outkast, when he was a kid fearing not fitting in, makes for a crucial flashback amid his call for “the peculiar” to rise up. In the abrasive and militant “Welcome to America,” Lecrae spits fiery vignettes of a black man dealing with the residual effects of slavery; a war veteran, failing to assimilate to civilian life; and a sweatshop worker from abroad, rejected in efforts to live in the same country as his employer. “Good, Bad, Ugly” is a shaky attempt to walk through past experiences with abortion and molestation. There are times when, with his voice already low, Lecrae seems to be at a loss for words, when he could be more specific, though it’s tough not to credit him for trying.

As he gained popularity, Lecrae would repeat to outlets that he did not grow up in a religious household. He tells of how he didn’t consider converting to Christianity until he was 19, when he attended a conference with a friend in Atlanta — hoping to pick up some girls — to see hundreds of other teens dressed like him. Like those conversations, Anomaly makes Lecrae’s journey to salvation seem wholly personal. Thanks to his passion, people are bound to keep rooting for him, no matter what their beliefs may be.