The iconic Christian Rap/Rock band DC Talk, made up of Michael Tate, TobyMac, and Kevin Smith, who split in the early 2000s, is releasing a special 25th-anniversary version of their album Jesus Freak, known for the single by the same name. The special edition of the album will contain never-before-released recordings. The group will also be holding various contests and events to celebrate the album’s 25th anniversary.
“This record was more the three of us than anything we had ever done together up to that point” TobyMac, who co-produced the album, said in an interview with JesusFreakHideout.com.
Paired with the 2020 release of the album is a previously unreleased video of Michael Tait in a vocal session in 1995. It has been uploaded to YouTube and has photos of the band recording and playing instruments. This unreleased video comes at the same time of the album also being broken down into 3 separate EPs, titled “What Will People Think,” “Human After All,” and “Trying to Find a Life.” These thematic EPs are paired with a devotion that the group made in partnership with YouVersion.
The album re-release’s contest, titled JF25 (short for Jesus Freak 25), has 25 curated giveaways for fans to win. Some of the prizes include a vinyl copy, an expanded Jesus Freak book, and a limited-edition box set. Anyone can enter the contest here, but the box set and the book are available for purchase on the DC Talk website.
“Jesus Freak” is one of the top 20 albums ever released by album sales in Christian Contemporary Music’s history.
TobyMac recalls, “This was the first album that sounded like Michael, Kevin and Toby. Those guys are such great vocalists that I didn’t have any more time for them to sing choruses. I wanted to hear some of their passionate vocals in the verses and beyond.”
One of the other producers, Mark Heimermann, who also co-wrote the song “Jesus Freak” stated that “When we were finishing up the project, we played Jesus Freak for the label for the first time and, let’s just say, it wasn’t received well,” and said the band almost broke up over it, but it was TobyMac who told them to stick it out, and the song Jesus Freak is now one of the most widely-recognized Christian songs in music history.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Terry Wyatt/Stringer
Video courtesy: DC Talk
John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Daily Fodder, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
