More Than You Know

It’s the morning of Christian music’s annual party, when the industry hands out its coveted Dove Awards before a national audience. Most labels around town are a flurry of activity preparing for the evening’s festivities. Inside the industrial-looking offices of Gotee Records, however, there is an air of casual indifference. Jeans-clad Gen-X staffers slouch through the black-walled halls; peering through a doorway, one finds all three members of the label’s flagship R&B group sprawled on the floor like toddlers at Gymboree. Out of Eden, consisting of sisters Lisa Kimmey Bragg, Andrea Kimmey Baca and Danielle Kimmey, faces a tight mid-June launch date for the group’s third album. The final product still needs to be tweaked, singles and videos picked, artwork from a California photo shoot sorted through and selected. There’s a lot of work ahead.

But you wouldn’t know it from the giggles that emerge from the room. Despite the fact they are now considered industry veterans—their previous two releases have together sold more than 400,000 copies and they were readying a late summer tour with teen R&B star Monica—the girls still seem giddily low-key about their career.

“I think this is really a coming-out party for the girls,” Gotee president Joey Elwood observes. Pre-launch, it was Elwood’s hope that No Turning Back would finally open the industry’s eyes to the sisters’ achievements. For despite the album sales, despite TV exposure on BET and UPN, Elwood and staff have faced a frustrating ambivalence toward their act within Christian music circles.

“It’s like, Oh yeah, the girls, they’re great. But then people are dumbfounded when we tell them some of the things they’ve done,” Elwood says. “The last album [More Than You Know] sold over a quarter of a million records. People say, No way, I would have thought 80 or 90 thousand.”

As it happened, No Turning Back would prove to be another Out of Eden success story. By mid-summer, critics would be singing the new album’s praises. No Turning Back would be on its way to the top of Billboard’s Heatseekers and Contemporary Christian album charts and the first single, “River,” would be a certified hit on the CHR charts.

But as for the ambivalence, well, it will take more than another hit album to knock down that hurdle. At its core is bias, some racial, some stylistic, plus a whopping dose of confusion about today’s popular music audience. “[The label] has had to do an incredible battle, an incredible warfare that we haven’t even seen, to break down walls,” says Danielle, at 19 the youngest of the three. “It’s just amazing what they’ve had to go through [for us], just to get what any other group would get automatically.”

Out of Eden’s musical style, vocal pop laced with R&B and a hint of hip-hop, has forced the Christian music industry to take a good look at its Jim Crow-ish segregation of artists. To put it bluntly, the notion that gospel is “black people’s music” and contemporary Christian is “white people’s music” has hurt artists like Out of Eden and Kirk Franklin, who fit in neither category. As any glance at the mainstream music charts shows, it’s also out of touch with reality.

“That’s one of the reasons we took our production company and rolled it into a label,” notes Todd Collins, label co-owner with fellow Gotee brothers Elwood and Toby McKeehan. “We had this group, Out of Eden, and this single we really believed in and we thought would make a big impact on kids and the industry. But when we started shopping it around to different labels they’d be like, Yeah, that’s good music, that would be great in a black gospel section. Well, it was obvious to us that this is not a black gospel group. We decided we needed to just try to sell this out of our basement. That was literally one of the reasons why we formed Gotee Records.” “In the mainstream, people are able to do it,” Danielle notes. “Blackstreet is able to be on Top 40 and R&B, so are Janet [Jackson] and Lauryn [Hill] and Brandy. But in Christian music, it’s like they want you to go ‘either/or.’ That’s kind of been a struggle for us, because we’ve had people look at our album and be like, That’s not our format, without ever listening to it.”

Those in the industry who say they are only mirroring the wants of the marketplace are woefully out of touch. “You look at secular radio and Billboard, and 33 percent of the music people are buying is urban music,” Lisa counters. The eldest Out Of Eden sibling, Lisa is also the group’s artistic voice, writing all of their material and serving as co-producer. “We can go to a concert and I can make a reference to a secular song, and everybody knows that song,” she notes. “So somebody’s listening to secular radio.” Collins adds that radio for the most part has been supportive. ”There’s only a handful that just go, That’s not part of what we do,” he says. “But that handful keeps them out of certain charts.”

The problem, actually, is more pervasive than merely getting radio airplay. Collins tells the story of when, a few months back, the girls were between managers and he made a few overtures on their behalf.

“I made some inquiries around town with people I knew were managers, who were managing groups who were good groups. Almost everybody’s reaction was, Oh my gosh, this is great! They sold more records than I thought they did, and they do a lot of concert dates. And then all of a sudden you saw their minds, you saw it click over, and they go, I’m a 45-year-old white guy, do I want to have to learn another culture?”

Collins doesn’t want to use the dreaded “R” word, choosing instead to take the high road and see a fear of the unknown underlying this situation. But he has seen it play out at all levels of the industry.

“That same thing happens with radio stations, they go, I don’t think black people listen to our radio station. Why do I want to play this group? They’re not black gospel, but still I would have to guess black people listen to this. I think concert promoters go, I don’t ever see black people at our shows, why would I want to bring these girls into our town?”

Furthermore, the notion that whites don’t listen to urban music is just plain wrong, says Collins, citing a Vibe magazine statistic that 75 percent of urban music consumers are white. “So the message we want to send out to all the people in the industry is: You don’t have to change yourself. The same people who are buying the music you are familiar with are the same people who will buy this music. It’s not something we should be afraid of. It’s not a whole different beast.”

Meanwhile, the girls have faced a few struggles which Collins describes as “heartbreaking.” There were difficult business transitions with their management and booking, last-minute concert cancellations, and then, last fall, an entire concert series was canceled just weeks before it was supposed to roll out. It left all three girls in a tough place financially.

“The three of us were in a situation where financially we were just broke,” Danielle says. “Everyone thinks we’re millionaires, everyone thinks we’ve got it made. And I’m sitting here like, Mom, can I borrow some money for gas?,” she laughs. “But God just totally brought us to this whole new level, showing us a clear path to where we’re going.”

Andrea explains, “I think He takes everything away so you can focus in on what you’re really doing. I was telling our road manager the other day that when you don’t get paid for a couple of shows, you really don’t care about the money anymore—you aren’t getting paid for it, so then it’s really all about ministry. You think, Well, why else am I out here?

“I look at people differently in the audience now,” she says. “This is for you, this is why I’m out here, because I really want you to know the love of God. Actually, I’m grateful.”

These struggles, and the girls’ ultimate faith that God will lead them where He wants them to be, birthed many of the songs on No Turning Back, Lisa notes. As for changing industry attitudes, everyone seems to understand that this will take time. “It’s all about, you have to keep putting stuff out there to keep educating people,” Elwood notes. “And that’s what we’re committed to doing.” Adds Collins, “Think about it: 33 percent of the people out there are consuming this music genre, and we’re not supplying [Christian] music for them. That’s a third of the U.S. population to whom we’ve basically said, Not yet. That’s even more of a shame when you realize that we’re supposed to be a ministry as well as a business. It’s really sad.”

“Sometimes you get tired of fighting, tired of being on the front lines,” Lisa admits. “You’re like, Is it worth it? Sometimes we get frustrated as Out of Eden and think, OK, this is ridiculous, let’s just quit, let’s not do this anymore, God’s not doing anything with this. And then out of that God will show us, Yes, I am. Yes, I am using you.”

“It’s really frustrating, but it’s also really exciting to be one of the first groups,” Andrea adds. “Now, when somebody else comes along, it’s easier for them to get in. People can say, Now we understand Out of Eden; we understand that there can be black music and anybody can like it.

“I want to be able to see other girl groups, other guy groups, that are R&B and hip-hop being accepted like we are.”