World Wide Message Tribe

Friday 1st October 1999

Manchester musicianries the WORLD WIDE MESSAGE TRIBE are busier than ever. Tony Cummings reports

World Wide Message Tribe
World Wide Message Tribe

Even by the bustling, hyperactive standards of the sprawling office complex which houses The Message (the ministry formerly known as Message To Schools), the building is buzzing. This is a Meet The Media day for the World Wide Message Tribe, The Message's spearhead band who for eight years have tirelessly taken the Gospel to hundreds of thousands of Manchester school kids. There is a new album 'Frantik' to talk about; exciting developments in the huge Manchester outreach Message 2000; and a new line up too (the official WWMT on-stage team now consists of Cameron Dante (rapper); Deronda K Lewis (vocals); Tim Owen (rapper and vocals); his wife, dancer/rapper Emma; fellow dancers Claire Prossr and Colette Smethurst; and the brand new addition rapper vocalist Lindsey West). In fact, Lindsey has only been an official member of the Tribe one day and so recognising a scoop when I see one I ask Emma about the latest Tribe addition. "Lindsey is a London guy. He's multi-talented, he sings, he raps, he dances and he loves God, which is really exciting. Obviously every member of the Tribe has a lot of experience. This is Lindsey's first time so he's doing a lot of learning, we're training him and he will be performing in the brand new show (at the famed Manchester Apollo) on 18th September."

I am sitting in the The Message upstairs meeting room with Emma and Deronda K and my wife Maxine. It is functional and businesslike though far from elegant. As if to emphasise the funky nature of the facilities, Andy Hawthorne, still the main preacher and mouthpiece of the'Tribe even though his Heavyfoot rapping days are over, pokes his head around the door to explain that the two men clambering down the ladder by our doorway had been clearing the loft of dead pigeons (now safely ensconsed in black plastic bags).

I ask Deronda what she thinks of The Message facilities. "It's really nice. When I first came two years ago we were in one room in a church, all of us sitting in one room," Deronda drawls in her lazy Georgia accent. "We've now grown to 21 people full time for this organisation and it got a bit crowded. So we went around scouting and God just kinda opened this up, so we can get Andy out of our room and get some work done!" Deronda lets out a warm chuckle. "It really is a nice facility," she continues. "The Message 2000 works upstairs, the Eden Project team works downstairs and the World Wide Message Tribe have their own little office."

Deronda has had many adjustments to make since she joined the Tribe immediately before the recording of the groundbreaking 'Heatseeker1 album. She's managed to cope with all manner of culture shocks, the trials of steak and kidney pies and fish and chips, an environment which steadfastly refuses to invest in air conditioning (making the Soul Survivor concerts trial by steam-bath) and a staider form of church service than the frenetic excitement of black church pentecostalism. "When the preacher says something good and I want to say 'Amen!!!', I've learnt to just go 'Mmm, mmm." Deronda and Emma explode with laughter.

It's only a month since the Tribe did three weeks of Soul Survivors so I ask Deronda what were her impressions of the biggest Christian youth culture event in Europe. "Hard work! We stay in this boy's boarding school where we have one little bed each and that's it. To celebrate in the evenings we come back and have toast! We on the grounds of Soul Survivor about half eight in the morning and we usually don't leave until about two the next morning, and that's a regular day for us. I know it doesn't seem hard when people see us on stage and they go, 'Oh, wasn't that great.1 But they don't realise that behind the scenes, the preparation, the number of teenagers that want to speak to you and pray with you. Those things are so good but for us physically we come back completely drained. It's awesome to see what God does, but we have to leave and pray for restoration for ourselves." Deronda laughs again.

What makes the work so tremendously rewarding but undeniably exhausting is the level of involvement that the team demonstrate to their fans. "I talked to so many teenagers who at one point or another tried to commit suicide. It seems that they are attracted to me while Emma attracts those who have been raped or have loads of physical problems and mental problems, abuse at home. It's physically exhausting. I do thank God because the last few days physically I was so tired, but that's when it's really great because I know it's not about me anyway, it's about him. That's when I can say, 'God, I know I can't count on me right now so Holy Spirit if you don't show up nothing's going to be accomplished here."

Since their inception in 1991 the Tribe have of course become a CCM phenomenon. Using the thudding dance beats of clubland they have presented an in-your-face evangelistic message to huge numbers of teenagers; shown the Nashville CCM scene that there are greater rewards than units shifted; and in the process became the most successful musical evangelists since Ira Sankey. Through their classic albums like 'Dance Planet' (1994), 'We Don't Get What We Deserve' (1995) and 'Jumping In The House Of God II' (1996), the latter a Dove Award winner, the band, under the intuitive direction of the Tribe's brilliant producer Zarc Porter, have managed to consistently find music which made sense to a school kid audience. However, aware that dance styles were changing the Tribe took a radical new direction with the 'Heatseeker' album (1997), which contained tracks, clearly influenced by the likes of The Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers alongside the more familiar stampers and disco pop. In retrospect, the album, despite its shining brilliance, was distinctly fragmentary and did not sell as well as some of the band's previous albums. More importantly, it didn't connect in quite the same level with the youth audience as previously. Now, in 1999, styles have moved on again. The dance records which cross over from clubland and into the Top 20 -always the major stylistic point of reference for a band like the Tribe targetting a young chart music audience -has changed again. The challenge for the Tribe is clearly going to be how to make an album which resonates with a 1999 pop dance audience but which doesn't sound like a various artists album. With the brand new 'Frantik' set they have succeeded brilliantly. "In many ways it's a mellower album," comments Doronda, "despite the title track which is the kind of thing the Tribe are famous for, a jump up and down kinda thing."

Tony: Aren't the days of the Tribe coming to an end if one considers the huge number of boy bands, girl groups and teenagers currently crowding the charts?
WWMT: "Emma thinks hard before responding, "I think as long as we are in God's will and we are listening to God, we will continually go until God says, 'That's enough.' We aim at the young people but at Planet Life there are so many older people coming now. I always believe that it's what you feel in your heart that's how old you are. Every six months we re-assess it and say, 'Is this right? Are we in God's will?' because it's a waste of time if we are not doing what God wants us to do. In January there is a new band setting up, so we are recognising that one day we won't be able to perform - we can't go out there with our walking sticks and be a dance band. The new band is going to be a dance band, it's going to be doing work very similar to ourselves, going into the schools of Manchester, we're going to be working side by side. Hopefully we are going to be able to impart some of our experience and knowledge on to them and train them up. So it's going to be an exciting time over the next year, what with that, the Message 2000, the big event. So much is going on."

The historic union of Soul Survivor and The Message to birth the biggest evangelistic push in any city in Britain in living memory is at the forefront of all the Tribe's vision. Emma's eyes glow as she speaks excitedly about what the monumental initiative will encapsulate, "Message 2000 has actually started already. A lot of people think that it is just an event next summer but it is actually 200 churches from Manchester linking together saying, 'We're going to get with this vision'. It's not just the Message, not just Soul Survivor, it's everybody.' They're looking to have 500 evangelistic missions from September to the actual summer event so when it comes it will be hopefully be like the icing on top of the cake that's has already been made. The big event is going to be 10 days with 20 to 30 thousand young people coming from all over the world, we've got planes coming in from South Africa, America, all over the place.

"It's two five day periods. Basically what will happen is in the morning there's going to be teaching, and worship like the Soul Survivor event down in Somerset. But in the afternoon, we'll take what we've learnt, what we've received from God out on to the streets. Not only will we be evangelistic, meeting people in the streets, having cafes open, things like that, we're also going to be doing social action, painting houses, cutting lawns. We're setting up a rehab centre which is going to help people with drug addiction, alcohol addiction, prostitutes, things like that. There are so many exciting things happening. Then we will invite people back to the evening events. Hopefully we will book out the clubs, the football stadiums. These are all our visions and plans. We'll say, 'Do you want to come to a free concert, do you want to find out more about Christianity?' and hopefully not only will we receive but we will be able to give out from ourselves what God has given us. It's going to be awesome." CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Tony Cummings
Tony CummingsTony Cummings is the music editor for Cross Rhythms website and attends Grace Church in Stoke-on-Trent.


 

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