Ryan Trey Releases FAITH OVER FAME, His First Christian Album, With Lecrae

What happened

Rapzilla reported that R&B singer and rapper Ryan Trey has released FAITH OVER FAME, his debut Christian and gospel album, in a story by editor-in-chief Justin Sarachik. The outlet described the album as Trey’s official move into faith-based music.

According to Rapzilla, Trey was previously known for breakout hits like “Mutual Butterflies” and his 2017 project Eight24, which earned co-signs from LeBron James and DJ Khaled. Bryson Tiller co-signed that project as well, the outlet wrote. Rapzilla also noted his collaborations with Babyface Ray and Jordan Ward and his tour runs with Mariah The Scientist, and wrote that “Trey is now using his gifts for Jesus.”

Rapzilla reported that the album has 17 tracks, with features including Lecrae, Alex Jean, Sam Rivera, HILLARI, LIN D and Deca OTA. The outlet said the record deals with “the friction between worldly pressure and divine conviction.” It said the focus track, “RIDE WITH ME,” looks back at Trey’s past life and a constant search for unconditional love that ultimately led him to God. Another track, “NEED YOU,” pairs him with Lecrae. Hip Hop Vibe separately reported the 17-track release, the focus track and the Lecrae collaboration.

Rapzilla’s piece is a release announcement and does not include comments from Trey himself. The outlet reported that the album is available now on all major streaming platforms.

Our reflection

Read Rapzilla’s description of the focus track again: a man looking back on his old life and a constant search for unconditional love. That line weighs more than the feature list. Many of the young men I sit with inside detention have the same search running under everything. They don’t call it that. They call it respect. Some of them call it numbers on a phone. Same hunger. Under the wish to be famous there is usually a wish to be known by someone who won’t leave.

Fame promises to settle that, and it can’t. A crowd loves you on terms, and the terms keep changing. Before anybody points at the music business, though, look at your own phone. Plenty of us in the pews check who watched our story before we pray. The old wound that whispers you only matter when you’re seen keeps making decisions for grown men too. Scripture has a blunt word for it. Idolatry: handing the glory that belongs to God to whatever can be counted.

Jesus was offered this exact thing. In John 6, after he fed five thousand people, the crowd was ready to take him by force and make him king, and he withdrew to the mountain by himself. He kept stepping away from applause that would have pulled him off the road to the cross. In Mark 8 he tells his disciples he will suffer and be rejected, then asks what it profits a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul. The trade he offers is harder than a rebrand. Follow a rejected man who was lifted up on a cross before he walked out of a tomb. The love this album describes searching for is found there, settled before anyone pressed play, and it holds when the numbers drop.

So rejoice, plainly. A young person raised on late-night R&B may hear surrender from a voice he already trusts and let it in, where a sermon would bounce off. The sound stays. The center moves. Nobody needs to burn the music Trey made before, and nobody should crown him either. An album is a first public step. Faith shows over years, in the ordinary days nobody streams.

We see change come the same way in our hip hop culture work. We start with the music young people already love and ask what it is telling them about who they are. Then we put a truer story beside it, sometimes over the same kind of beat. A teenager who has heard you are your reputation a thousand times needs to hear, from someone who sounds like home, that he is loved before he performs.

This week, pray by name for Ryan Trey and for the young listeners pressing play on this record. Then pick one step below and take it for a young person still chasing a name.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

Mark 8:36

Source: Rapzilla, “Ryan Trey Enlists Lecrae, Alex Jean, & Sam Rivera for Debut Christian Albun ‘FAITH OVER FAME’”