The Monitor (Kampala) 14 December 2007 Posted to the web 13 December 2007 Dennis D. Muhumuza It has been a three-year holy roller coaster as LVC members represented Jesus in the hip hop culture. LVC is an acronym for the Levite Clan, a music ministry whose members - Renee DA PREACH Emcee (Tumukunde Richard) and No Hell 01 (Ivan Wobusobozi) have passionately challenged the youths to shun the negative lures of worldliness.

We are like watchmen on the graffiti wall of youth culture warning against entertainment icons whose bling-bling lifestyle seems right but leads to destruction, says Renee Emcee who recently returned from Canterbury, England where he spent three months as an urban youth missionary. The group picked a cue from the Biblical Levites who were very well known and highly respected throughout Israel for moving about ministering earnestly in the name of God.

So they study the gospel message, apply it to the contemporary world and deliver it in a style and language that urban youths easily relate to and understand. Urban youth are the audience that God has commissioned us to reach out to, explains No Hell 01. Our slogan is ‘Taking the gospel to the streets through holy hiphop’ and hip-hop is the language urban youth speak.

The Levites who are popular performers at TLC during Gospel Night are particularly concerned about the deceptive message of secular hip-hop on the streets that leaves young people with no honour for God. And to counter that, they fuse holy rap in which they implore the young generation to spurn wrong models and destructive elements of the culture and instead embrace salvation through Jesus Christ.