One “yes” changed Dante’ Pride’s life. Nine months or so ago, a clip of gospel music legend Lisa Page Brooks singing the phrase “the Devil is a liar” went viral. Pride, a Christian hip-hop artist from Alabama, kept seeing the video on social media.

Pride normally focuses on songwriting and rapping, but one night last October while sitting on the couch, he got inspired to do some music production. He went into his home studio and added drums, rapping and other elements to the “Devil is a liar” vid.

“After I posted a snippet on social media, within 24 hours it went crazy,” Pride tells me during a recent video call. “People were creating TikToks, Instagram reels to them, Facebook videos. People were literally like begging, like, can we get a full song?”

Pride connected with Brooks’ daughter on Instagram. He messaged her about the interest in his snippet and asked if it would be OK to release a full version.

She messaged back that she’d check with her mom and see what they could work out. Brooks released an original version and gave permission for Pride to drop his hip-hop version as a follow-up.

“When I released it, that song went everywhere,” Pride says. “And so that song right now, we have like 3.9 million streams,” across all streaming services.

Pride’s excellent track featuring Brooks’ “Devil is a liar” vocal, titled “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” is nominated for a 2025 Stellar Award, for Rap/Hip-Hop Song of the Year. The Stellars are the gospel music equivalent of the Grammys.

In November, “Overflow,” a track on the gospel group Transformation Worship’s album “Undefeated” featuring Pride and fellow Christian rappers Caleb Gordan, dropped. That album topped Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums chart.

More than a decade into his music career, Pride was now getting interest from major labels. He had his heart set on Capitol Records, home of legends like Frank Sinatra, Beach Boys and the Beatles and current stars Ice Spice and Katy Perry. “It’s a super dope house, man,” Pride says. “They get down to the business, but it definitely seems family-oriented.”

Capitol told him they loved what he was doing. Alas, the label also said they weren’t looking to sign another Christian hip-hop artist at the moment, Pride says.

But a little later, a vice-president at Capitol reached out to Pride and said he’d had an epiphany while at the beach that he needed to sign him, Pride says. Capitol, via their Motown Records/Tamla Records arm, signed Pride at their Nashville offices.

“And so literally, that’s how it happened,” he says. “It’s just been surreal, man, being able to sign with Capitol along with Tamla because of how much of a historical weight Tamla has.”

Back in the 1960s and early ‘70s, artists like the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Steve Wonder and Smokey Robinson & The Miracles had hit singles on Tamla.

Pride’s first Capitol/Tamla single was “My Praise.” His lyrics on the track reflect gratitude to his God. He says, “I’ve been a starving artist before, jumping from job to job and things of that nature. And during that time when I wrote ‘My Praise,’ I was in a situation where things were starting to turn around.

“Because one thing that I’ve noticed is, like, whether it was times that I was down, broke, didn’t have much money or anything, God is good, or where things are turning around and I’m on the mountaintop, he’s still good.”

He’s slotted as a Christian rapper. But more accurately, Pride’s a gospel rapper. That gospel root gives his music an organic feel, innocence and joy, in my opinion, lacking in a lot of current mainstream hip-hop and modern popular music in general.

It’s never overstuffed or synthetic sounding or careerist-calculating, either. To paraphrase the great blues and rock singer/guitarist Eric Clapton, it’s not just what you play, it’s what you don’t play. Pride gets that.

Finger wagging or brow-beating aren’t part of Pride’s faith-based hip-hop. For example, his lyrics on bouncy cut “Test Him Out.” Pride says, “I’m just telling you how what I’ve experienced. So it’s like, yo, like, just test Him out for yourself. He’s brought me out of anxiety, brought me out of depression, so that was just a fun song just to encourage people.”

That’s another thing about Pride’s music that defies contemporary Christian cliches. It doesn’t sound apologetic or submissive. It sounds fun.

Pride was born in Decatur, Alabama and grew up a preacher’s son. His dad was pastor at a Baptist church in Courtland, where Pride’s uncle played drums and his aunt played keyboards in the church band. Pride sang in the children’s choir.

When his dad moved to a church in Hartselle, Pride played drums in that church’s band. “That’s where my love for music really developed within was in the church,” he says.

Pride thought his fate would be playing traditional gospel music. Then, when he was in second grade, his uncle turned him on to the music of Christian rapper Canton Jones, while they were on a car ride.

“I was the back seat and listening to the beat,” Pride recalls. “I was like, this can’t be Christian music, but he’s saying ‘Jesus.’ And ever since then it changed my perspective. I had a paradigm shift after that.”

Soon after, he was writing down Christian-inspired rap lyrics in a composition notebook.

He draws from secular rappers too, especially Kendrick Lamar. “I like Kendrick Lamar,” Pride says, “because when you can hear a record and you can just feel the expression. It’s not just a track. I listen to that, and I feel what he’s saying — you’re taking me through a journey.”

While residing in Huntsville, his collaborators include Kelvin Wooten, the Athens-based Grammy-winning studio wizard who’s worked on music by artists from J. Cole and H.E.R. to the Bee Gees, TLC and Mary J. Blige.

“Wooten has been just a mentor in my life,” Pride says. “Not only just the music, but also as a man of faith, man, as a man of God.”

Pride says it was important to him to make a mark in music while still in Alabama.

He says, “For the past three years, I had always said, God if I ever was to do something big in music, let it be in Alabama. Because so many people feel like they got to leave the great state of Alabama in order to do something monumental in music. I want people to know that they don’t have to go anywhere in order to be successful.”

The day he signed with Capitol in Nashville, Pride got an offer to become the youth pastor at a church in Atlanta. He says, “God was like, hey, Dante, I honored your request. You wanted to sign while you were here in Alabama, and now I’m moving you on to the next thing.”

Pride and his wife, Loreal Pride, now reside in Atlanta. He checks in for this interview from his office at his church there. He still makes regular visits to North Alabama though. His fave haunts there include Huntsville chicken hotpot Bo’s Best Wings and Madison brunch/coffee jam Lux BRū Café.

Besides faith, family and music, Pride’s interests include Los Angeles Lakers basketball and Dallas Cowboys football. He also loves playing videogames like “Fortnite.”

On July 12, Pride’s returning to Huntsville for “We Outside,” a free concert at Dream Theatre, the third time he’s put on “We Outside.” He’s got a sinuous new single too. Released June 20, “No Problem” boasts a hot guest spot from female rapper Porsha Love.

Even if you’re an atheist or rockist, the soul and musicality in Pride’s gospel rap is undeniable. After listening to it, you feel better than you did before.

“If it’s going to be Christian hip hop,” Pride says, “I believe that people should feel something when they hear it. A lot of times people feel like because you’re doing it for God, anything will just work. And I feel like because of the fact that you’re doing it for God, it should be even more excellent.”