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That's not too much different than dc Talk. Jesus Freak was a singles-based album.

tobyMac We approached Jesus Freak, Supernatural, and Free at Last exactly like that. Each song is its own entity; let's do it the best we can. When you love Houdini, Run-D.M.C. and Grandmaster Flash, and you're also influenced by The Police, The Cars, Hall & Oates, Lenny Kravitz, and The Cure, you're going to make an eclectic record.

The words "fresh" and "innovative" are normally attached to what you do. A lot of Christian music is not. How do you stay hip and relevant?

tobyMac That's a little hard to handle. It's more how I try to stay fresh. One of the reasons is, no one makes the kind of music I make in the Christian market, and I can probably even say the same thing of the mainstream market. It's not like I'm listening to things and being influenced by current music. That's one of the keys: I don't really bask in the music of today. I'm more a listener of the past. And I think if you take modern pop—song structuring and arranging—and then mix it with the sounds of the past, it's going to seem fresh and different.

The main way I do that is by remaining true to what's really moving through my veins. I'm not saying, "This is the way it's done, I know this is a hit, I've done it before and we're going to do it again." But if I keep from becoming jaded in my approach to songwriting and recording, if I stay in the mindset that something fresh is going to come today, if I write about what's going on in my life and the struggles I'm having in my relationships, if I write about how God's relating to us and how I relate to God, then there's nothing stale about that.

The biggest fight we have as musicians is to wake up in the morning and go to the studio or your piano or your guitar and truly believe that God can move something through you that moves people—connects with them, challenges them, causing them to dialog about who God is. I really believe that can still happen instead of thinking that this is stuff that needs to be churned out because it's our job. That's how I believe we'll stay relevant.

As they get older, artists tend to shy away from catering to young audiences. Yet you're still a big hit with the youth-group crowd fifteen years later. What keeps you motivated?

tobyMac What I do is true to who I am. This is the music that I love. I'm not doing this for anyone. This is the music that God breathes through me. If I write a chorus that says, "You've got me feeling so fly," it's not vague or manufactured. That's what I came up with, and I feel like having a party about it. So I might drop a party on that track. I think that will always draw youth culture. If there's anything we're short of in Christian music, it's a party. And I'm not conjuring it up. We like to have a party on our stage. You come on our bus, and there's a party.

It's a struggle, and there'll always be a struggle. There are times when we need to worship. There are times when we need to fall on our faces before God. But there are also times when we need to celebrate, times when we need to drop a joy bomb on the whole joint. And I sort of think that no one else is doing that. Obviously, there's a uniqueness to what me and the Diverse City band are doing.

There's a tendency in Christian music to take itself too seriously.

tobyMac I think everybody's scared of the joy bomb. They feel like the music has to be so intensely thought provoking, worshipful, and focused on the struggle. But we forget that there's another side that's just as valid a music platform. When I think of the songs that we all sing, songs we all know and love, a lot of it is celebratory music—music that reminds you that in the midst of the storm there is joy.

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