Is Hip Hop Dead? Part II - SHONLOCK vs. WORD RECORDS

Prior to placing his lyrical D.N.A. on major gospel offerings, Lock championed the cause of dancer and choreographer for Arrested Development and the late R&B Princess Aaliyah. After a foray in mainstream, the Chicago native encountered a spiritual transformation with the assistance of Christian hip hop artists Verbs and Bonafied and Coffee of The Grits. After which, he began choreographing for some of the Christian industries most acclaimed acts. He added the electrifying spark to shows for Grammy nominated duo The Grits, Nicole C. Mullen and The Katinas. It was during this transition period that Lock was picked up by industry veteran Toby Mac as a touring hype man and choreographer, a position which he still holds today.

Internally, Word secured Lock’s signing without the internal structure necessary to work a hip hop project or any other urban project. Outside of legendary Karen Clark Sheard, whose recent Word release was worked by radio, marketing and promotions professionals from outside of the Word system, the label has no other African American artists whose primary market is an urban demographic. The lack of urban/hip hop tenured staff at Word led to problems early on for Lock. “I remember being called by the label to do a photo shoot. And I do a lot of flips as apart of the show I do with Toby Mac and so they wanted to incorporate that into the photo shoot. They asked me to bring a trampoline to the photo shoot thinking that was how I did it, which was clueless. However my biggest struggle is the label wanting to dabble in hip hop because they see it as doing well on the mainstream side but not wanting to do it right.” On top of the bad business at the label, Lock states that Word requested that he water down his lyrics. “I wrote a song called Never Been a Pimp which was produced by Matthew Knowles production team The Bama Boyz and the label took the song off of my album because of the thought that it might not sell in Christian bookstores as a result of the word Pimp.”