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Toby McKeehan (professionally known as TobyMac) is a Dove- and Grammy Award-winning Christian alternative and rap figurehead through his solo recordings and his work with the influential rap and rock trio dc Talk. Since issuing his debut solo album, Momentum, in 2001, McKeehan has released a steady stream of gold-selling efforts like Portable Sounds (2007), Billboard 200 chart-topper Eye on It (2012), and Life After Death (2022), all Christian number ones that found favor with secular and non-secular audiences alike. He also released one-off singles like 2024's "Nothin' Sweeter."

Toby McKeehan grew up in the Northern Virginia suburbs in the shadow of Washington, D.C., where he fell in love with rap music. While attending Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia in the mid-'80s, he met Michael Tait and Kevin Max Smith (aka Kevin Max), and the three friends formed the Grammy-winning, platinum-selling Christian pop group dc Talk, which mixed elements of CCM, grunge, and rap. When dc Talk ended in 1999, McKeehan began a solo career that was stylistically diverse and immensely successful.

The first TobyMac solo album, Momentum, was released in 2001. A mixture of urban rock and rap, it garnered five Dove Awards and a Grammy nomination, and spawned the remix album Re: Mix Momentum, which appeared in 2003. Using pretty much the same blueprint, and even adding a little dancehall reggae, McKeehan released Welcome to Diverse City in 2004. It worked again; the record landed TobyMac a Dove Award for Rap/Hip-Hop Album of the Year. Another album-length remix set, Renovating->Diverse City, came in 2005. Released in 2007, Portable Sounds provided fans with another vibrant, genre-melding set of new material and entered the Billboard 200 at number ten. Four of its singles, including the Kirk Franklin and Mandisa collaboration "Lose My Soul," reached Billboard's Top Christian Songs chart. It was followed in 2008 by the two-disc live set Alive and Transported.

McKeehan's roll continued the next decade. Tonight, released in 2010, debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 and won a Dove Award for Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year. In 2012, after Christmas in DiverseCity and Dubbed and Freq'd: A Remix Project, he released his fifth proper studio album, Eye on It. Ever willing to explore different sounds, he incorporated EDM-style dubstep in the set, and it debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 and won the 2013 Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. Reviving his album remix format, he issued the companion album Eye'm All Mixed Up: Remixes in 2014.

McKeehan debuted new material while on his 2014 Worship, Stories, and Song Tour, and the single "Beyond Me" was released at the beginning of 2015. His sixth album, This Is Not a Test, followed later that August, again topping the Christian charts and reaching number four on the Billboard Top 200. It also took home the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. A concert album, Hits Deep Live, captured performances from an arena tour that kicked off in the spring of 2016. It arrived in audio and video formats that November.

TobyMac returned in October 2018 with his eighth full-length, The Elements, which he produced alongside David Garcia and Bryan Fowler. Buoyed by the single "I Just Need U," the album landed on top of the Christian albums chart and cracked the Top 20 of the Billboard 200. Two years later, TobyMac issued an EP of previously unreleased demos called The Lost Demos. The following year saw the release of the moving single "Help Is on the Way (Maybe Midnight)," a tribute to his son Truett McKeehan, who passed away in 2019. Additional Christian Top Ten tracks like "Promised Land" and the chart-topping "The Goodness" featuring Blessing Offor paved the way for his next album, 2022's Life After Death. It was his sixth consecutive studio LP to hit number one on the Top Christian Albums chart. Its promotional cycle lasted through 2023, after which TobyMac delivered the breezy standalone sing "Nothin' Sweeter" in June 2024. ~ Steve Leggett & Andy Kellman

Veteran worship pastor and songwriter Jon Reddick composes lyrics that speak about redemption and hope. His music's intention is to foment discussion while impacting cross-cultural narratives about difference, healing, and faith. His style, which weds contemporary gospel, praise & worship, and hymnody, has registered with several generations of listeners. The live videos from his 2019 debut single "You Keep Hope Alive," for TobyMac's Gotee label, were shot at Nashville's Church of the City and have garnered hundreds of thousands of views while the track charted at streaming.

Originally from Memphis, Reddick is the son of a pastor and a church pianist. He is brother to six siblings including Janice, a Stellar Award- and GMA Dove Award-nominated recording artist for Motown Gospel. While he played piano and sang in choirs and youth choirs while in high school, it was in college that Reddick began to flourish. He wrote songs for services and led a contemporary gospel group. After graduating, he followed his family into church work. Reddick led the worship team for a church in Memphis and eventually made his way to a similar role in Texas. He immersed himself in bridge-building across racial and generational lines, working to bring churches and cultures together under a tolerant Christianity. Reddick relocated to Nashville, where he became the worship pastor of Church in the City. In Nashville he was given opportunities to work on his songwriting skills with internationally renowned artists such as Matt Redman, Tommy Sims, Josh Kerr, and Sheryl Crow. He also toured and recorded as a pianist and backing vocalist with Nashville artists Nicole C. Mullen and Mandisa.

In 2017, Reddick watched TV as the horrifying events unfolded at Charlottesville, Virginia, in response to the Unite the Right demonstration. In addition to hundreds of injuries resulting from battles between attendees and counter protesters, one young woman, a counter protestor, was run over and killed by a rally attendee. Reddick's response to the tragedy resulted in "You Keep Hope Alive," co-written with his fellow worship pastors Anthony Skinner and Jess Cates. After TobyMac signed him personally in late 2018 (Reddick had been his worship pastor for eight years previously), the singer entered the studio with producer Nathan Nockels and cut the song. The response to its release in April 2019 was instant; it charted at streaming and got radio play in the South. It made way for the poignant video that has been shared globally. Reddick followed that success with "God Turn It Around" later that year and issued a live video for the single at Church of the City in August. Additionally, he, played and sang on Aaron Shust's Nothing to Fear, and he, Cates, and Skinner co-wrote the hit "In the Arms" for Terrian.

As Reddick planned his debut album and co-led worship services in church, he found time to record "Glory & Majesty." The track was issued to streaming at the end of January as a lead-in to his debut album. The global coronavirus pandemic put those plans on hold temporarily, even as the single ticked up the charts. Reddick, undaunted, continued to record demos and post videos to his Facebook page; he also contributed a live version of "You Keep Hope Alive" to the Gotee quarantine compilation entitled Blessed. ~ Thom Jurek