What do you get when you mix a 15-year-old Christian missionary kid living in Belgium, rap music, and a computer?
Rapzilla.com.
Rapzilla is the No. 1 website for Christian music, and it all began with Phillip Rood.
"I started when I was 15 years old in Belgium," Rood told CBN News. "I was big fan of Christian hip hop, wanted to start a website because I thought I knew a lot."
His parents were missionaries and wanted him to stay connected to what was going on in the United States.
"Growing up in a Christian home, I didn't really listen to secular music, so I would go on mp3.com and download as much free Christian rap I could find," he recalled.
"I got connected with Chad (Horton) pretty quickly after I created Rapzilla. He had another website called HipHopForTheSoul.com," he said.
The two merged their efforts and over time became co-owners of Rapzilla.
"When I came on with Phil I think we were seeing 20,000 visitors per month," Horton said. "And now we have 300,000 visitors per month. That's the change that's happened in the last five years."
"That's amazing because we're not just pushing hip-hop, we're pushing the Gospel via hip hop," he added.
They say their success came in part from learning to "fail fast" and being innovative.
"When you invest a lot of time into something you think is a great idea, if it fails, it's really hard to pull the plug," Rood explained.
"The Church needs to stop playing catch up and needs to be in the forefront and innovative in the ways to reach people," he said.
The other key to their success: giving away free music. And most of the content, about 80 percent, comes from independent unknown artists.
"I think the most popular is the free downloads," Horton said. "Everyone loves free music and that's the way to get your stuff around."
They're not only spreading good music, they are also spreading the Gospel to people who might not hear it by going into a church.
Did you know?
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