When Brandon Classey was a kid, he received from his mother a card that contained the meaning of his first name--a meaning that would turn out to be a calling, a ministry and a stage name. 

That meaning was "Beacon Light," and now the rapper and hip-hop worship leader from Michigan is looking to shine a light in hip-hop, bringing rhymes that express freedom from hopelessness, salvation in Jesus, and joy in life. His passion and purpose is most recently reflected on his most recent project Lights On, and particularly with the song "Painted Red," which addresses issues of self-harm with the love of Christ.

Beacon Light sat down with NRT Editor-in-Chief Marcus Hathcock to talk about the emcee's origins, as well as current influences, future hopes, and sharing the stage with bratwursts. 

You're calling from home now, but you just got back from doing some shows. Tell us where you just were and what you were doing.

I was just in Wisconsin. We headed out to this secular event called Brat Fest. A Christian festival called Lifest had a stage at Brat Fest. It's actually kind of funny because it's like the world's largest bratwurst festival, which is kind of random. It seems like something Wisconsin would do.

But basically there's tons of sausages and brats all over the place and there was a bunch of different stages that were playing. This is the first year that they had Lifest host a stage for themselves, so it's kind of a big step for that community to pull in a faith-based stage, because they didn't really know how that was going to work, so we were kind of like some of the first impressions as artists and stuff.

I was there throughout the weekend and performed and everything was really good. Clearly not everybody was a Christian, but it was cool because I mean they were -- people were drinking beers and stuff, enjoying the music, and it let open to other conversations like talking with them about Christ and stuff like that, so it was a really good opportunity.
 
How long have you been rapping?

I've been rapping for a while. I really started -- it all started with messing around in high school, like freestyling and stuff like that, and then I walked away from the Lord for a while and was 19. I'm 28 now, but when I was 19 God really grabbed a hold of me and I started writing songs for Him, but I never really took any of it seriously as a career until about three years ago and I started pursuing it more.

What changed there? What made you feel led to go that direction?

When I was 19, I honestly didn't -- I'd used hip hop in such the wrong way. I didn't even know if I could use it for God at all, and then I heard some of Lecrae's music and I was also reading so I went to a Bible college called Grace Bible College in Michigan and was doing a Biblical studies degree program and one of my classes, I read this book about a missionary who basically he went down to like this tribe that was unknown in central America and long story short the whole tribe came to Christ and they would sing in their culture for 12 hours straight. They would just take a day and they would just sing songs all day.

So that time became this redeemed time of worship, but it threw them off because all of their singing was in minor keys and stuff like that and so to his Western ears it sounded almost demonic, but then he realized God had redeemed their culture. That was a huge thing for me in really pursuing hip-hop and the ministry through that, but then as far as the career transition, honestly, it just kind of happened. I was just doing shows and then I'd see God do something at a show and then somebody would refer me somewhere else and then it just almost snowballed and almost turned into that and then it came to this point of realizing the only way for me to be able to continue to do this and be available is to do it as a career because just the realities of life.

When I was in college it was easy to kind of here and there just perform randomly, but when I got out I realized if I'm really going to be effective with ministry and this and being available to go down and do a youth group on a Wednesday night in a random city or piece together shows and stuff like that I'm going to have to be available for it. That's just when I kind of dove all in.
 
You have an album out, Lights On, that released a year ago. How's that album doing? Are you currently still playing stuff from that? Are you working on other stuff? Where are we at in terms of the music itself?

The album's been good. It's always been a challenge, like independent artist with more so of getting the word out and distribution. Obviously it's nice being able to connect with you and New Release Tuesday and Rapzilla and all these other places that give independent artists some type of outlet because that's sometimes the hardest thing is letting people know about it.

For Lights On I did a release party with Lecrae. He actually was in my city. When he came in I did my album release performance that day, so I had a bunch of my fans there, but there's other people that found out about it. It had a really good launching platform, but then digitally and doing distribution and stuff like that -- obviously it's on iTunes and all that other stuff, but as far as getting the word out everywhere, independent artists that can be tough.

So I feel like people are constantly finding out about it. The sales are still moving on it, which is cool.

It's still new as far as you're trying to connect with people outside the region and whatnot. Even though it's been out for a year, it's almost like it's a relaunch in a sense.

That's one of the benefits of being independent is that your music is always new to somebody. It's been cool and I've actually been doing a tour built around one of the songs, called "Painted Red," so I've been doing a tour called the Painted Red tour. That's really themed about -- because "Painted Red" is about self harm and depression, like trying to get help in Christ, so that's kind of like the main part of my message within my show is that Jesus can heal brokenness and I specifically mentioning cutting, but then also talking about depression and stuff, so that's actually given the album some more fuel to doing a tour based around that song. It's continually getting people involved and stuff in that and it's been effective ministry wise, so it's been cool.

As far as new music goes, I've been working on some new songs with this guy named Tommy Profitt, who actually, he just got signed as a songwriter and producer for Capitol and so that's been good and there's another guy that. I'm a worship leader at a hip-hop church called The Edge in Grand Rapids. We use hip-hop music as our worship music, so my set has that feel to it as well. I'm really passionate about evangelism, so I really want the crowd to have fun and be excited and energized, but yet at the same time I really like to bring that element of worship into my live set and into my music so that way -- even when people are putting their hands in the air for me, it's not just like -- because I struggled with that first of people waving their hands and doing all that because it feels like it can be fun, but sometimes it's almost like you're glorifying the MC on stage.

I almost treat it as the same thing if people put their hands up in worship, like I wave my praises to God and so that type of element is within my set as well, but I'm pretty excited about the new stuff that I've been working on with Tommy just like he's a genius man, so we've been friends for a while. He actually went to the same Bible college as me and then just everything kind of pieced itself together and we're just keeping stuff moving.

For a second talk about this hip-hop church thing. This sounds absolutely fantastic and intriguing. Does it work as far as congregational participation? Are you doing songs that they already know? Are these originals? How does that work?

We've done quite a few things. I think within hip-hop that's sometimes -- I was just talking to somebody about this yesterday actually at the festival. Sometimes the struggle is the participation from -- like when you're rapping a verse, it's a lot harder for the congregation to follow you because one of the strengths of hip hop is that you can get so much content into one verse, which works really well if you're almost preaching through your music or telling a story, but as far as people genuinely being involved in all your verses, that can be hard, so we usually find the majority of participating, unless a crowd knows the song really well, like you find the majority of participation on the chorus, but then a lot of it is like, it's been an interesting road to navigate because for me -- I remember when I first became a Christian. I was going to churches and when I would just be in their service or whatever, just going to their worship, I remember just free style rapping over stuff, just worshiping God with it, and it's almost like God took that and has been showing me how to lead people within that as well.

So we have songs. I wrote a song called "You Are God," which actually George Moss is on. It's written to God, so it's proclaiming God's attributes. Depending on how you write the song, getting the congregation involved can become easier or not and we've remixed songs too. We did a remix to "Awesome God" and some other popular songs that pretty much everybody knows the choruses to and we'll put verses here or there. It's been an interesting journey. It's been really cool to see what happens. It's been cool to continue to bring that to my shows as well. There aren't very many hip-hop worship leaders.
 
You've mentioned before your connection to George Moss. Talk about any other partnerships or other artists that you've gravitated towards and maybe worked with or have mentored you, anything like that.

George has definitely been, I would say, the biggest influences just because we're from the same city and I've known him for a while. As my career has been growing more, he's been consistently there and he's like the dude that always picks up the phone, which is really cool.

We just did a writing session with We Are Leo in Wisconsin, which was really fun, so I just met them pretty recently. We've hung out a few times, like three or four times, so we were over there hanging out and writing and stuff like that, but honestly a ton of my artist to artist connection and like not even necessarily, I don't know, like for me the huge connection has been artists that are in my church because there's tons of people, so I started a label called Infinity Music Group to disciple a lot of the other young rappers who have ministries and stuff like that and really it's just trying to teach them what I know. So that's been cool.

Then KJ's been pretty helpful. He always answers my text and the phone, so it's been cool just to get some wisdom from him and learn from him about stuff. 

It's been cool. I feel like sometimes it's hard to when you're on the road and you're talking to different people, everybody is so busy and they're just grinding that you have to be -- like I'm expanding more. I've been in regional areas in Michigan and Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, stuff like that, but a lot of it's youth groups. I feel like festivals are one of the only places you get to really connect with other artists in a serious way, but then occasionally you'll see people on tours. I just got to hang out with -- I see B. Reith a crazy amount of times over the last few weeks because he was doing the wall of down tour with Royal Taylor and so we played with them in northern Michigan and then another one in Grand Rapids and then I actually was just -- before I was in Wisconsin, we were at the 360 conference, the urban youth work conference in LA, but they have this big conference every year. Urban youth work as an initiative does and there's a lot of hip hop artists there, so B. was there and then we performed and so did he.

I've seen him three or four times in the last month and a half. It's been cool getting to know him and connecting with him and stuff, but it's kind of one of those things. Tour life is interesting because as an independent artist who's kind of getting started, it's not like I see people all the time, but when I do I try to connect with the and hang out.

Speaking of touring and whatnot, it sounds like you're going to be at Lifest. Any other summer plans, any other tours happening?

I'll be at Big Ticket Festival as well, which is another CFA festival, but that one's in Michigan. I played that the last few years. It's super cool, welcoming environment, but the biggest tour plan that I'm putting together right now is in the fall we're going down to flavor fest. It's like the biggest hip-hop conference there is, so everybody in the hip-hop industry like Lecrae, all those guys are usually down there either doing some workshops or performing or whatever.

It's more rappers then you ever need to know are down there. We're going to go down there for the conference and stuff like that, but then on the way down we're piecing together a tour. We already have a few dates lined up for that, so it'll probably be anywhere between -- depending on how many dates we get pieced together -- like two weeks to a month long gig and then September I do a lot of youth groups. September is a crazy time. Tons of stuff is booked for September. I'll be crazy busy.

I'm just planning on continuing like the Painted Red tour, doing a fall version of it, and then by January I want to try and get a new album out.

I guess just in closing, how can we be praying for you?

I guess within the transitions of life and all that stuff and taking the right directions of where to go because I really feel like God's called me to do what I'm doing, but I'm balancing a lot. I'm a worship leader at a hip-hop church, but I'm also starting an arts program with a lot of kids who don't have very good direction in their lives at all and very little support and trying to balance that while I'm also doing music 70 to 75 percent of my time. It's interesting.

I guess really trying to figure out those next transitions and how to continue to just do what God's called me to do while being married and while doing everything and keeping everything in check.