Baptized in Mud is the eighth album from Reconcile, released in 2025. It is long, dense, and personal, closer to a witness statement than a playlist. He paid for it himself, and when it came out he gave ten thousand dollars of the rollout to violence prevention in Chicago.
What the album is about
The album treats a life shaped by pressure as a moral question. It does not frame the streets as mythology or as a villain. It frames them as conditioning: what happens to young men when poverty, absence, and violence are the water they grow up in. Faith shows up quietly and keeps showing up, not as a quick fix but as the thing that removes the shortcuts.
The opening run sets the direction and then tests it. “Road to Redemption” asks whether a new direction can survive contact with real life. “Don’t Leave” sits with the shame that lingers after forgiveness. “Say Twin” and “Letter to the Trenches” bring memory and grief into the same room. “Flood Me” names emptiness plainly, “My Hope Is Hard to Kill” refuses to quit, and “Tears of the Father” closes on the Father’s heart. The Cuney Homes Choir, from the Houston housing project where he started Church in the Bricks, sings on the record.
The $10,000 Chicago grant
When the album released, Reconcile committed $10,000 to violence prevention in Chicago. It was not a matching campaign or a sponsor announcement. It was a grant from the artist, paid out of his own album rollout, into a city where he already had relationships in faith and organizing networks. If the album says the streets are conditioning, the grant is what it looks like to act like you believe it.
Where it fits in the catalog
Baptized in Mud follows Abandoned Hope (2012), Sacrifice (2014), the Streets Don’t Love You series (2017, 2019, 2020), Light of the Trenches (2022), and Forever (2023). More about the sound is on the Christian hip hop page.
Listen, then bring it to your city
Stream Baptized in Mud on the music page or on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. To bring the album to a festival, church, or campus, book Reconcile.