Tara Isabella Burton

I would say the other thing that's different about this moment is that this is happening at a time when contemporary worship music specifically is having a moment where

not just the pop-styled Christian music.

So in the past, it's been Amy Grant succeeding in being a pop star who is Christian, or Switchfoot succeeding in being a rock star that is also Christian.

But now it's worship music specifically, which is a very specific kind of CCM, music that is designed and envisioned and marketed as music for use by congregations.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

You might sing this music.

And so Brandon Lake, who is this Christian artist who's kind of had this explosion all of a sudden through these collaborations, he is a worship pastor at a church in South Carolina.

And that, I think, is unique about this moment.

There is this figure who is seen as almost like treating his audience as a congregation.

And offering them this kind of very direct spiritual encouragement.

And I don't really know what the exact why is, but for some reason, audiences are responding to that kind of message and to this

faith-flavored music in an interesting way right now.

And he is not the only one.

Well, when we talk about the reasons why CCM and gospel have historically been divided into different categories –

and you can trace that history back to similarly the way we trace the division between like country and R and B right into the history of race records, the way that different music has been marketed to different racial groups in the U S really since the beginning of the recording industry.

And, you know,

Country music and CCM are both based in Nashville.

Now, the gospel crossover is an interesting question because I like to watch for what elements of gospel artists like Maverick City Music or Dante Bo or CC1s are sort of allowed to bring with them into CCM because

Like you mentioned, there are elements of gospel music as practiced in churches that are not brought in, right?