On this episode of Unique Access, Soren Baker sits down and speaks with Christian Hip-Hop artist Derek Minor about his 1014 EP.
“The EP was named 1014 because the album is set to come out on October 14,” explains Derek Minor, who adds that the EP is just an appetizer for his Reflection album that is due out October 14.
Baker says the song “Drowning” is my favorite song on the EP. “I think it shows a different side of you and sonically it’s very stirring,” Baker states before questioning Minor about the genesis the song sonically and lyrically.
“I think that it is just the evolution of me as an artist,” Minor states. “I have been rapping forever. A lot of people don’t know I have always written all of my hooks on all my albums. I wrote all the hooks and melodies and gave them to someone else to sing. On my last album I did a duet with Colton Dixon and I don’t want to be the same artist that I was when I came into the music industry.
“I love music and I get bored really easy,” Derek Minor adds. “With music it is such a vast space it pushes me to grow more as a creative. It’s me saying, ‘Looked what I’ve learned since the last time we met.’”
Baker switches gears and inquires what made Minor’s song “Free” such a bold and powerful record, something that he wanted to tackle.
“I’m black and I am a deep thinker and when I saw Alton Sterling, Walter Scott, Laquan McDonald, Mike Brown and Philando Castile, that affects me and it could have easily been me or one of my boys,” the rapper-producer says. “I felt like a lot of people feel like their life does not have any meaning and I wanted to take that feeling and put a soundtrack to it.
“If you think of Christian circles, a lot of people shy away from it,” Derek Minor adds. “But not me. I tackle them head on. I believe for me is not just about the money, but my voice being heard.”
Baker asks Minor, being a fan of artists like Crunchy Black, Gangsta Blac or Three 6 Mafia, what he took from them artistically.
“I think everybody in Tennessee you grad from the Blues you know the culture,” he says. “I mean listen to Isaac Hayes. That dude was telling his story. People listen to my music and say, ‘Your lyrics are so relatable,’ and I say listen to the people I grew up listening to, these artists who were relatable. If you add up all that together, that is what you get from me: relatable lyrics with style and substance.”