There's something about hip-hop music and superlatives: "the best-selling rap artist"; "the emcee with the smoothest flow"; "the producer with the hottest beats”; “the biggest platinum chain".

Christian hip-hop isn't nearly as concerned with these things, but if it were, The Cross Movement would run away with the title of "most evangelistic group in hip-hop." Hands down.

Not only is the Philadelphia collective continuing to "draw all men (and women) unto God" and itself, other rappers are nurturing personal relationships with Christ because of The Cross Movement, too.

Up-and-comer FLAME is one of them. Like colleagues Da' T.R.U.T.H. and Lecrae before him, the St. Louis native is also a Cross Movement disciple -- musically, spiritually and otherwise -- but not before a period of soul searching of his own.

"If I had one word for my life without God, it would be 'confusion,'" says FLAME, who had no idea about Christian rap at the time. "I met Christ after my grandmother passed away in 1998. That helped me get back into church."

His awakening to faith-based hip-hop came two years later, in 2000, while browsing the aisles of his local Christian bookstore, where he came across House of Representatives -- his unofficial introduction to The Cross Movement. A fan was born.

The crew's work motivated FLAME to write and record his own raps. Little did he know that his humble, low-budget recordings would one day end up in the very hands of Cross Movement members Tru-Life and The Dash during a Chicago gig. At first the rapper was hesitant to pass the album along-after all, he was there to have a good time, not to hustle his CD around -- but after a little prodding from his friends, he broke down.

"It was like meeting your heroes almost," he says of the experience, which also happened to be his first-ever Christian rap concert.

Barely a week had passed by when he got a call from his heroes themselves. It wasn't a call to ask him to sign on the dotted line and join the Cross Movement family -- not yet, at least -- but to encourage him to stay strong in the Lord and foster his walk with Him.

The phone calls between FLAME and the CM camp continued for a year, until the conglomerate felt strong enough about the emcee to give him an opening slot on the "Platinum Souls Tour." He didn't have an actual album to sell, but he didn't care-he was in rap heaven.

This period of accountability led to his first two albums, Flame (2004) and Rewind (2005), two albums whose fiery rhythms and incendiary rhymes fit snugly in the Cross Movement canon. The real stunner, though, is this month's Our World: Fallen, a concept album where FLAME ponders the world's need for a Savior, all the while raising the bar for his craft on every front possible.

"The album is a passionate, but basic, explanation of God's pursuit for His created people," he says. "It's very simple, but it's a very informative appeal for people to run to Christ."