Richard Cutright/Brandon Meads- Do You HipHop?

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Go to NikitaKoloff.com and get registered today for the Holy Land Tour. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. I have in studio with me today, Richard Cutright. And welcome, Richard, to the show. Thank you.

Thank you so much. You know, it's great when me being a rapper, you know, I was so busy, Christmas time, all the gifts, I was just, you know, gift wrapping because that's what we do. Oh, come on. Come on. I love it.

I love it. Now you got with you, we're going to, we'll dive more into this, but you got somebody with you today as well. Yes, sir. My brother, B. Meads, Brandon Meads of the Just His League, which is a collective out of Charlotte that we are part of as a band of brothers.

We've been together since 2009. Different denominations, different races, just really just trying to be an image of the church for the church and the image of the church to the world, just working together and preaching the gospel in the streets and the prisons, the schools, everywhere that we can, you know? Okay. Well, and we're going to dive into all that here in just a second. And so, Brandon, great to have you on the Man Up show. I am honored to be here. Thank you for having me.

I didn't know, you know, Richard was going to have such a special guest with him. Well, we are kind of on a mission. So we just, I just, you know, he's on the way.

He's like, you want to stop by? I was like, hey, why not? Okay. Well, I like, oh, I like the t-shirt. Stay faithful. Oh, yes.

Yes. I like the t-shirt. And well, let's, okay, so let's, let's back up just a little bit and let's start.

Let me just start, Richard, with you. And we met through now a mutual friend, Derek Jackson, who is the owner of Taste Buzz Popcorn out in Concord. They're doing amazing things. Him and his wife, Tavia, have an amazing ministry of both awesome believers. And the Lord has been blessing their business, seeing it expand and grow. And actually, Derek, that's how we've met through music because he does Christian hip-hop as well under the name D-Jax. And we've been doing ministry together, I believe, since 2011 or 2012. So it's really just been a band of brotherhood in this city where God has been strategically placing us in places and positions in business and all these other avenues to continue, you know, to do the work of the Lord. While using the gifts that he gave us, you know, through rap worship and everything else, you know. Well, it's amazing.

Well, you say, you know, he's, they are an amazing couple. I mean, she, uh, uh, she, I think the off air, if I remember, she, she, she brought down, I think she took the paint off the walls with that prayer. Tell me you're praying now. She prayed the house down, brother. I'm serious.

She did. I was like, and she prayed some things for me, you know, like, you know, I don't make, you know, like public knowledge, like some, uh, uh, some about my health. I'm like, man, the Lord had to show you that. Cause I don't really, you know, advertise, you know, some of the different physical challenges that we all go through. Right.

Cause his body, you know, as the scripture says, the Bible says, breaks down day by day, you know, basically, but, but our spirit man grows day by day. Right. But anyway, so, well, let's do this just for, for our listeners out there, Richard, just a little bit. You mentioned Charlotte mentioned Concord, North Carolina, um, tell our listeners, give them a quick synopsis of who Richard Cutright is. Like just a little backstory. Where'd you grow up or you're living, where are you living now?

Family just real quick. Yes, sir. So originally, um, father was an assistant pastor, Queens, New York, one way church of Christ, but my mother was, uh, one of the musicians. She's actually now been the minister of music for 47 years, uh, born in 1983. So forties coming up, I'm like, Lord, Jesus, I know, you know, thank you for letting me make it, but can you pull back some of these gray hairs though?

Just a little bit. But, um, yeah, moved to Charlotte in 1995. Um, you know, my mother, she, you know, uh, was doing some, some music things and we just kind of got grounded in, in, in some churches. She was playing around, uh, graduated guarantee high school.

I went back to New York, came back. I really just trying to find my place as a young adult, knowing that life is, is a gift that's given by God to give back. You know what I'm saying? So it was me, um, growing up, knowing even that I had this gift from the talent for, for rap that was kind of rejected by the church culture at the time because it was the, the, the culture.

The only way it was introduced was, Hey, the world is doing this. I'm saying you're kind of replicating that and not knowing what to do with that. I kind of struggled with finding my place in the church. Um, growing up in the church, not out of church, you know how that goes for so many of us. And, um, my father passed in, in 98. So there too, you know what I'm saying?

And I'm just trying to, you know, find, find my place. And, uh, you know, one day, uh, I just sat down, was talking to my cousin Markel about some things and he was like, you know, bro, you know, the Lord has a call on your life that's greater than anything that you can even imagine. And the truth of the matter is, yeah, going to church is cool, but you don't get to heaven off perfect attendance. You know what I'm saying? So you say it's either you hot or you not. That's it. He said something like that. He said, it's you hot or you not. You know what I'm saying? You in or you out. There's no middle ground.

There's no grade. He didn't like to move warm, does he? So just in the midst of that, me just hearing that straight unadulterated truth from my cousin, who at the time was even himself was like kind of finding him. So he's like, yo, you know, I know one thing for sure is like that God has called you for greater.

And it's time for you to get out of the gray areas and walk into the things that he called you to walk into walking to righteousness. Him just, just really just, I mean, yeah, man. I mean, I cut everything. It was a total like 360. I hit a B because we already was, you know, being, being church kids. When my brother glasses, we was like church kids grew up in the church and we're trying to make, you know, hey, we're going to make wrap for Jesus. And yeah, but we still was like, you know what I mean? It was a lot, man. But there was once, once I had that conversation with my cousin and I reached out with all of the brothers, man. And we just, we just began to just pray together, go deeper. And you know, the Lord just expanded everything, man, blew, blew our minds up the water.

And we've seen the Lord do so much. Oh, we're going to get to that. Oh yeah. So, so let me, let me just recap real quick. So, so you, so Terry, are you a PK? Yes, sir.

We're the baddest, we're the baddest ones. I hear you. I hear you. So, and so, so ministry and music have been in your family. So the fact that you're engaged, involved in that is really, in a sense, no surprise. Just picking up the, the mantle of my mother and my father. Yeah. That's amazing. So you're living in Charlotte.

Yes, sir. But now I live in Albemarle. So I was in Charlotte. We were doing ministry since 2009. Moved, bought my first house, glory be to God, 2021.

You know what I'm saying? During the pandemic, the miracle of getting a house with me having no job, my wife being at the time, the only one working due to the school system being shut down from us doing the touring that we were doing. The school tours, and we'll get into that a little later. But even us being able to get a house, the way that we had gotten the home was only because God wanted us placed there. And now we're connected to a wonderful ministry who has a heart for community, for growing. Like the church, I'm in Stanley County, Albemarle, North Carolina.

And they right now, Stanley County has, I believe, the highest number of opioid addictions in all of North Carolina. You know what I'm saying? And to be able to be at a church whose focus really is we want to just not bring people to church building, but we want to build community with them so they know that they can come here, that we can love them like Christ. We can also teach them to walk in holiness and righteousness, but also to be able to love themselves and know that the Father loves them despite of how far they've fallen, that He always has an open door. Come home, you know what I'm saying? And He can revive you, He can sustain you, He can clean you up. We all were messes, you know what I'm saying?

Absolutely, we're all flawed, it's a broken world, and that's what we entered into, right? Thanks. So, family? Oh yeah, so I have one beautiful chocolate thunder sugar baby. My wife, Victoria, you know what I'm saying? I love it. Yeah, I call her my sugar baby chocolate thunder. I mean, I love superheroes and comic books and stuff. How old is she?

So she is, I'm not going to tell you because I want to live, but... Okay, okay, fair enough. Smart man.

Fair enough, yeah. Women don't like to divulge their age as much as men do, I find, but I raised four girls. I raised four girls. Wow. How many shotguns you have?

Huh? How many shotguns you have? Well, fortunately, they're all married. I joke and say they're all married off my payroll now, so they all got good men taking care of them, you know? So, well, let me jump over to Brandon here and get a little back story on Brandon, our extra... So our special guest and then our extra special guest. Yeah, I'm a tag team partner. Tag team. Boom, tag.

Yeah, I'm a little familiar with that. Let me tell you something, brother. The Lord called you today, brother. Brother.

Do you know good rate? I love it. You got the holy powers here.

You almost sound like you watched wrestling growing up or something. Oh, you think? I was glued to the TV a little bit, yeah. Oh, yeah, brother. Jump into the Slim Jim, dig it? Oh, yeah. All right, Brandon.

That's a pretty good invitation, a macho man. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

All right, good. So give us a little back story. A little back story, yeah. Even if you have a wrestling story, throw that in real quick. Come on. Wish I had the bones to be a wrestler. I don't know.

But y'all snap, crackle, and pop out there in the ring. And I don't know if I'm, mm-mm. But no, I was born in Lexington, Kentucky. My father's military. Moved us to Charlotte, North Carolina when I was like five, right after my brother was born. Grew up, was raised in the area of Mathews almost. Charlotte and Mathews. Yeah, yeah. Mint Hill area.

Mint Hill, yeah. Graduated from Independence High School, was raised, mm, I guess you could say Baptist. But I was always non-denominational.

OK. I mean, you know, growing up. You knew there was more than just a label going on here. Yeah, I never really got that.

Embrace the label. Just like Cutwright, I was in church, but not of it. So growing up Baptist, I never really grasped it. I just, you know, I started to believe in God. I gave my life to Christ at 16.

My mom singing in the choir. My dad, he went to church, but being military, you know, he didn't go to church that often. But he believed.

And he still believes to this day. But growing up, and he was into jazz. My mom and dad, both in high school, they sang in a school band.

They put a band together. So I'm a child of- You're a product of that band. Yeah, I'm a product of music. So music has always been in me.

Yeah. But yeah, graduated from Independence High School. Met this guy years later. I was working at the movie theater. This guy shows up.

He wants to buy a ticket to a movie. You had hair then too. You had hair. Yeah. Yeah, I'm team Baldy now.

Mr. Clean. Ain't nothing wrong with that, Brandon. Nothing wrong with that. It's okay. I embrace baldness.

That's true. Just like I embraced the gray too. Come on. But yeah, we were making music together. Music is one of those things that brought us together as friends.

Then a couple of years after that, this guy comes to me. He's like, yeah, man. The music that we do is great and all, but what if we combine that with our love for Christ, man?

Share the gospel. I'm like, amen. By that time, I already had one daughter already. I was just like, hey, I got kids, man. You know what I'm saying? I want to make music that they enjoy, that they can enjoy, that they're going to hear it anyway.

While I'm making it, I want it to be good music, good clean music that they can be fulfilled and grow off of. I'm like, hey, I'm with it. So that's how that came to be. That was 2009-ish? Yeah. Well, actually it was a little bit before that. Yeah, 2007-ish that we changed over and began to change our sound. Okay. And it was 2009 that the church I was attending at that time had a big youth jam, and we had other people, other artists join in on that. And we kind of just, you know, just the brotherhood and the fellowship with those brothers, we was like, well, you know, we got numbers, exchanged numbers, and we're like, hey, we'll talk to you guys soon.

And before you know it, that camaraderie came together and created that justice league. Yeah. She had the one daughter. So how many children do you have now?

I have three now. Three girls? Three girls.

Three girls. Well, we can relate and we can talk there. So you met at a movie theater. That's a pretty good introduction there, the way God just crosses our paths with individuals, right? Here's what I'm reminded of as I'm listening to your guys' stories, right? I went, I guess, I don't know, maybe several months ago to a movie called The Jesus Music Movie.

And if you're familiar with that, Richard, looks like you are a little bit. And what it reflected was the birth, essentially the birth of Christian music. I mean, you know, the introduction of drums and guitars that are, you know, prior to that were of the devil, you know, so, and so I won't name any denominational churches that believe that, but however, you know, instruments and musicians and singers on stage without shoes and bare feet, you know, and so it was really fascinating for me. I love listening to music. I don't know that I could carry a tune in a paper sack personally, so I appreciate you guys who are gifted that way, but it was really fascinating to me to see that the whole introduction of music, the shift of music from hymnals and how the church initially rejected that style of music. And I can see where that would very much parallel with what you guys do, like in the rap world and the church embracing that, like, yeah, keep that on to the streets or whatever. So Richard, take a minute, speak into that for a minute.

What kind of, what kind of, what's the word I'm looking for, opposition did you face initially as you guys are forming this brotherhood? You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Nikita Koloff here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

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Go to www.koloff.net and donate today. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. I mean, so initially it was really just a lot of legalism. And I would say that, but first and foremost, as like, this is where we're dealing with the Word of God. You want to make sure that when you're communicating the Word, the message is, is scripturally sound.

You want to make sure the doctrine is sound, you know what I'm saying? But back in the day, we'd have to write almost dissertations, college papers to come to rap for kids. And we're covering topics that they have no idea about when really, you know what I'm saying, for a lot of Christian musicians is almost, and we actually talked about it in the song that we're working on called Peaches and Cream. And I was saying that we were saved so we could minister the truth, but when they hit our line, it's to entertain the youth. And the thing is for us, like anybody who's here, who has the heart to preach, to communicate the gospel, man, it's always been, our heart is to intercede, not to entertain. You know what I'm saying? There's a difference between entertainment and intercession. It's just a preconceived notion, you know what I'm saying?

Because if all they've known hip hop for is how it's damaged a community or how it's become this identity for a community that's negative, always take it to this, man. Music by itself in its beginning, before creation was created, music was meant for the worship of God. He gave Lucifer, said, hey, this is the position, worship me with this. This is your job.

This is your title. So music in itself, before God positioned Lucifer, music was created for his worship. Our hearts- Glorify him, right?

That's it. Our hearts take music the direction that it goes. Music by itself is, if you could take some Beethoven by itself, it's beautiful.

If somebody want to talk about Beethoven, about sleeping around or whatever, and they sing on it, then it becomes a depraved record. You know what I'm saying? The enemy takes it and twists it and uses it for evil.

Exactly. Initially, it was meant to be beautiful. With drums and guitars and all that, people, they relate these sounds, but it's everything that I have, breath, praise the Lord, all things were created for his worship. Man's heart taints it and turns it into something with it. The same thing as a car, it's an inanimate object. You can deliver groceries or pick up people to take them and give them rides, or you could do drive-bys and run people over, but it's all about the intent of the driver behind it. And music is just a vehicle, and we choose to take people to the throne of grace. That's a good word right there, Brandon.

I'm going to jump over to you. So tell us, this brotherhood is formed in about 2009. Since then, what are some of the things that you guys collectively do together and or with the brotherhood that's been formed? What are some of the things that you guys are doing? Well, we do outreach. We take every opportunity for outreach to building within the community prisons. We love to go to the prisons, rock out with the men and the young boys out there every chance we get, because they, I mean, let me tell you something about, one little second about that.

It's a different type of ministry, a different type of gospel, a different type of praise out there. And you would think for some brothers that are locked up, some of them will never leave that place. Their hearts, how they praise God, it's different because everything is stripped away. They're not hiding nothing. They're not hiding anything because there's nothing to hide. They don't have to wear it. They don't come to show up and show out because they don't have three piece suits. They all got the same suit.

The same suit. So they don't have to put on the mask. They don't have to put on the charade, so to speak. So all these things that a lot of people hide behind, titles and all kinds of different things, it's stripped away. It's just you and this sanctuary for this amount of time before you go back to your cell.

What are you going to do with it? So now that puts things in perspective and I haven't really seen a mass amount of people praise God like that. And the other thing too, bro, is I'm sorry to cut you off, B, is that we've seen where many times people are put in prison because God has preserved them there. Their life is being preserved in there and he uses their testimony so powerfully. We've seen people that we've written off society as lost and we've had encounters and said, man, it wasn't that they were lost.

They have not yet had a true experience with the love of God to transform them because the love of God is the thing that will transform hearts and win people. You know what I'm saying? Man, that's good. I'm going to interject something along those same lines. And so two things come to mind. One, about two thirds of the New Testament was written by a guy named Saul, wait, most might know him as Paul, who wrote most of, a lot of that in prison, right?

By all accounts. And the other is John Bunyan, if you're not familiar with the book called The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan back in the 1600s in England was preaching the gospel and threatened to be put in prison if he didn't stop talking about Jesus in that day. And went from like 30 days of incarceration to 12 years in prison is where he wrote the book Pilgrim's Progress.

That is the second most read book behind the Bible, The Pilgrim's Progress, but he wrote it in prison. And so a lot to say about that. Hey, you guys are doing some amazing work and I'm going to do this. This is just stirred up within me.

So before we lose track of time here, all right. For our audience, Brandon, I'm going to start with you. You've got to give us like a 30 second taste of what you do. What could our listeners expect?

Can you give us a sampling of what you do? They want the bars. Oh, they want the bars? Well, I would say, give them praise if you're born again.

And if not, then yo, here's a warning then. Who you think brought you through when the storm was in and then brought joy in the morning, man? It's Christ. Only one king, one crown and oh, how sweet the sound cause in him is the life and the light of men.

Good for your body like vitamins. Come on, I love Richard. Come on. All right. Jump in Richard. Come on now.

Jump in. See, there's only one name that could save men. If it ain't Christ, then it ain't him trying to rob him of his glory like a break in like he will ever do the opposite of hate sin.

That's as bogus as a bill and tear journey. It might've hit your head, need a bed and a gurney, but once you learn to trust in the God whose glory gets infinite, every problem you'll have will give it a gym membership and work it out. And then when y'all on track to the crossroads, when your life's a train wreck, he's the source code. It's called grace. Make no mistake pimping, his wrath pass over the hood like Blake Griffin, but ain't a person flight enough to ever match his latitude. Check Hebrews one, three to find a factual.

Then you'll know why Snoop Dogg could move to Amsterdam and couldn't claim to be the most high. His glory and honor, dominion and power at the mention of his name, demon, chamberlain, coward. What's his name? Jesus.

What's his name? Jesus. The holy name. Jesus. The mighty name. So when you feeling like you trapped and you can't get free, there was power in the name that caused the enemy to flee. I dare you call the name Jesus.

What's his name? Jesus. The holy name. Jesus. Jesus.

The mighty name. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Amen. Come on. Come on. He's locked in the studio.

And man, I love that. Now how can we, before we run out of time, how can people find out like more of, is this a website? How can people find out more about you guys? So like we're, all of us, it's a massive group of us, 13 of us, all different lives, all different everything.

Currently we're all on social media. You can look up Adjust His League, J-U-S-T-H-I-S, League on YouTube. They're actually all comic book nerds as well, which is why it's called the Just His League, number one, because if you look at the comic books, they were all with different heroes on their individual assignments, but they were called together when there was a threat greater than themselves. You know what I'm saying?

So regardless of the nomination powers, background, all this other stuff, they came together for one purpose, and our purpose is to lift the name of Jesus. Brandon, Rich, you're well. Cut right. B. Mees. B. Mees, is that how you say it right? B. Mees.

Okay. That's my name. It's great to have you guys in the studio today, and be sure and check these guys out, and please consider bringing these guys into your community to impact your community. And so thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Man Up Show, and until next week, until next time, God bless you. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions.

Go to coloff.net and donate today. Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out the Man Up Show, now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings, or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. Nikita Koloff here.

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