Hulvey’s ‘Could Be Tonight’ wins Dove Award for Rap/Hip Hop Album of the Year

What happened

Reach Records artist Hulvey won Rap/Hip Hop Album of the Year at the 57th Annual GMA Dove Awards for his project COULD BE TONIGHT, Rapzilla reported. According to Rapzilla, it is the fourth Dove Award of his career. The outlet credited the album’s production to xander., Micah Palace, Zac Lawson, Michael Howell and Ace.

Rapzilla said the category featured “a lineup of heavy hitters, rising stars, and production teams across the genre.” The other nominees, according to the outlet, were Blameless by Jackie Hill Perry, FINE BY ME by gio., Reconstruction by Lecrae and Via Dolorosa by Miles Minnick. Rapzilla noted that Hulvey and Lecrae each came into the night with nominations for both Recorded Song and Album of the Year, and that the Rap/Hip Hop Recorded Song award went to indie tribe’s “ROB HELL.”

Rapzilla reported that the ceremony took place at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on October 6 and aired October 9 on TBN. Rapzilla’s report did not include any comment from Hulvey about the win.

Our reflection

Most of the young men I sit with inside detention can rap a whole verse from memory before they can tell you their caseworker’s last name. The music reached them first. A lot of what they grew up on told them their worth was what they carried and who they could make afraid. Some of those verses told the truth about pain nobody else would name. Some of them taught a 15-year-old to put a low price on his own life. Both are true, and the young man who pays for it is never reduced to a lyric.

So when a hip hop album about faith gets honored on a national stage, that is good news, and I’m going to say so plainly. I’m also going to be careful. An award is one night. Faith shows over years, in the booth and away from it. The right response is to rejoice and to pray for Hulvey and for everyone in that category, because a stage is a hard place to stay honest.

Church people should feel some conviction here too. For a long time, plenty of us treated hip hop as the enemy’s music and the kids who loved it as a problem to manage. That contempt cost us. It told a generation that Jesus didn’t speak their language, so they went and found someone who did. Others of us have the opposite problem. We pray for the neighborhood on Sunday, then spend the week nodding along to songs that celebrate the very things burying our neighbors’ sons.

When Jesus called Levi, Levi threw a party, and Jesus went (Luke 5:27 to 32). The house was full of people the religious crowd had written off, and when they complained, Jesus said he came for the sick. He sat down at that table and stayed. He also didn’t leave Levi the way he found him. Levi walked away from the tax booth. Grace and truth sat at the same table.

I don’t know everything Hulvey meant by the title Could Be Tonight. I do know what that phrase sounds like in a cell at 2 a.m. The man dying next to Jesus had no time left to earn anything, and Jesus told him, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). The turn doesn’t wait for a clean record. It can happen tonight. After that comes the slow work of the Spirit: patience growing where rage used to live, and self control learned one ordinary day at a time.

That’s where the music becomes a tool. We use hip hop in our work because it is the language this generation already speaks. When a mentor asks a young man what he’s listening to, and then really listens with him, a door opens. Play a song like this next to the ones he already knows and ask him what each one says he’s worth. Then show him the list of producers Rapzilla printed: dozens of names, real careers built behind the boards. A kid making beats on his phone needs to see that the craft can take him somewhere.

This week, ask a young person in your life what they’re listening to before you hand them anything. If you want to go further, there are young men in detention and coming home in Miami who need someone willing to sit at the table with them. Young men in Chicago and Houston are waiting for the same thing.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.

Psalm 40:3

Source: Rapzilla, “Hulvey Wins Christian Rap/Hip-Hop Album of the Year for ‘Could Be Tonight’”