Page >> 6HEART OF THE ARTIST

I’m would not be sitting in front of like that. I’m here for the youth you right now if a youth leader like culture; I don’t want to be some you had not taken interest in me ‘mature’ artist. I want to go down when I was 13 years old. That’s why swinging.” So I decided to make an tobyMac I will forever be grateful for what you album that was punching at all levels guys do. —no letting up. I don’t want to go out playing laid-back music and falling I see us as doing the same thing. I asleep to it. I want to go out with a mean we have different ways of bang! Talks Back approaching ministry, but hopefully we work together to reach the youth So my next projects are going to culture. That’s what I’m about. God keep hitting right where youth culture has called me to be a youth pastor. I is, until someone slaps me in the do youth ministry through my music face and tells me to wake up I’m On October 12, 2004, interlínc but that’s what I am: a youth leader. gonna keep rolling that way. I feel like Everyday my engineer and I pray, that’s always been the calling on my hosted a “TalkBack” meeting “God, make us a vessel that You can life. breathe life through, that You can with TobyMac and a ton of breathe your Word through. Make us God consistently has delivered to so creative that when the album me amazing people. I’ve consistently Texas youth leaders. The con- comes out people will be attracted to prayed, “God, please surround me it. Not so that we may be lifted up, with people that will point me to You. versation was recorded, and but so that people can hear your Surround me with people that will Word.” I’m not gonna let up from hold me accountable. I need people some of it has been transcribed being the youth pastor that I am. I’m that will love me enough to stop me not an ordained minister so I won’t in my tracks when my ego’s getting here. The cool thing to notice is use the word “pastor”—I’m a youth out of check. I need people who will leader, a youthworker. love me enough to remind me of who that Toby considers himself in I am in You.” And God has answered I’ll tell you a story about “Welcome to my prayer. From Gotee Records to Diverse City.” I was about halfway TobyMac to DC Talk to anything else the same boat as the rest of us through this album and I had this I’ve done, interlínc included, God has taste to do something a little more surrounded me with people that tell as youth ministry leaders. That’s “mature.” I wanted to have a stand- me the truth and are willing to stop up bass, a piano, along with a small me and say, “Whoa. Where are you way unusual for an artist of his jazz kit and then I would rhyme and going with this? Where is your sing and sound a little more mature. I evangelistic calling in this? Are you stature. To listen to the complete started messing around with this idea doing rock and roll and hip hop and God sort of confronted me. I music, or are you using the music as talkback session, go to don’t know how to describe it and I a tool to share Jesus with people?” don’t want to be overly intense about God has been so consistent at giving www.interlinc-online.com/free. this, but I thought, “I’m not going out me those kinds of people.

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I always feature my son “Tru Dog” social issues. So I wrote the songs on a few songs. On “Welcome To on “Diverse City” from more of a Diverse City” the song is called “Tru personal standpoint, but about Dog, The Return.” We have fun in the subjects that become social issues. studio. I share a studio with Nicole C. Mullen and her husband, and their I mentioned that my parents got son Max is my son Truett’s age. The divorced a while back. When I two boys wreak havoc in our studio. finished this album I called my Everyday after school they have a parents and told them I wrote a free run of the studio and basically song about the divorce because tear the place up. Sometimes I will I know how many kids, and maybe catch Truett messing around on the even youth leaders, have been mic and be able to record what he’s through that experience. The song doing. I’m still trying to figure out wasn’t an easy one to write but I feel what to think when people come up like it’s poignant and hits home. I to me and say, “My favorite track is pray that it can be a blessing to kids ‘Tru Dawg.’” I’m processing those who are going through the breakup feelings—I am an insecure artist! of their parents. My parents’ divorce (laughs) happened when I was older, but I still felt everything kids feel. The divorce I write a lot of songs about social may not have made a daily change issues because I think that when you as much as in a kid’s life, but it confront a social issue the world really… well, I can’t say that cause lends an ear. Then you recognize that it really has. So many of my friend’s God really is the answer to the social parents divorced when they were issue. Loving other people and loving young, and as much as I wanted God with all your heart is the answer to I could not empathize. And then to most social problems. But this it happened to my parents—and record got a little more “personal” affected me. So I prayed, “God, than it did “social.” The album does please breathe something through deal with social concerns, but the me that will give those kids songs are more personal—like the something to hold on to. Something song “Stories (Down To The Bottom)” to let them know they are not alone.” which is about my parent’s divorce. What I guess I’ve learned is that So that’s my heart. At the end of social issues become social issues the day I owe a lot to youth leaders because they are a lot of people’s —to all of you who have partnered personal issues. If we are all going with us through the years, but also through the same things, like the to the guy who led me to the Lord. breakdown of our families or not Thank you. I will always be grateful. having a father figure like the way we need them, those things become