["ShowStopper" by TobyMac starts]

TobyMac: Hey, what's up? I’m TobyMac. And I am in my studio workin' away—workin' on this record that I cannot wait for you guys to hear, man. Comes out February 9, 2010. And that is just around the corner. You’ve heard "City on Our Knees." I got a lot more where that comes from, and I'm thankful that God is breathin' fresh stuff through me. It's been in the crockpot just about long enough, we simmerin', and we about to serve it up.

["ShowStopper" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: I mean, I look at song-writing as a job. I don't view it as, "Hey, I have three months to make this record," and, you know, run in and make the record. Uh, when this record finishes and I come off a weekend of shows, I just go back in the studio and I keep writing songs.

["ShowStopper" by TobyMac stops; "Changed Forever" by TobyMac starts]

TobyMac: Uh, the way I see it, it's song-writing and trying to make records as a full-time job. somеtimes those songs go elsеwhere. I just got a song that I wrote three years ago for this record that landed on the Hawk Nelson record 'cause I decided it wasn’t right for my record. So I look at song-writing as something that I do every day. It’s just part of my life, um, and—and whether I'm writing with another person or by myself, it’s just part of what I do. And then I'll take out of about, you know, 40, 50, 60 songs that I'm working on… I'll take, you know, those 10 or 12, and I’ll—I'll start sort of going down the road on those a little further and considering that my record. My records are always diverse. I definitely am sort of this, um, mixing pot or what—what they call in Jamaica a one-pot, which means you just throw all the leftovers and—and anything you got left in the kitchen sittin' around in this big pot. And, uh, out comes this music. It's always been who I've been. From DC talk to today, I have always blended rock and roll with hip-hop, hip-hop with soul, uh, reggae with rock and roll. Whatever. It's all about beats, rhythms, guitars and melodies, and then, of course, what I'm saying.

["Changed Forever" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: I'm workin' with three different producers on this record. I go into the studio every day and work it out, and just sort of hand my songs to someone say, "Ayy, make it hot." This is not the way I do things. I'm a guy that sits there every day and literally co-produces my record. I don't think a beat has gone on or—or a keyboard played or guitar played or a baseline play when I wasn't sitting there on any of my records. And I don't do that, you know, because I don't think someone can't do without me. It's just— I want to be involved in every aspect of my record, from the artwork to the way the songs build to the way they're produced. Every lyric and every melody. It's just really important to me 'cause I feel like the more of me I can put in it, the more it represents TobyMac and what God is breathing through me.

["Changed Forever" by TobyMac stops; "Get Back Up" by TobyMac starts]

TobyMac: Chris Stevens is co-producing the bulk of the record, just as he did on Diverse City and Portable Sounds. This guy is a guy that, you know, I—I—I look to every song I—I write, every song I conceive. I think about what he'll do to it or what we'll do to it together. He's an extremely creative man—always ready to—to shift directions with me and all my, uh, schizophrenia when it comes to production. You know, once we might be working on somethin' with the Wurlitzer, layin' over a beat, and then all of a sudden I just don't like that anymore, so we're gonna have this beat and put this heavy guitar on it. Chris is a guy that could pick up almost any instrument and play it. He doesn't mind me singin' in lines. You know, most guitarists look at you crazy when you start singin' 'em a riff, but Chris is always willing to work with me on that. So, I think, uh, no doubt, Chris has sort of become the TobyMac writing and producing soulmate, and we always get it there. Sometimes it takes, you know, we take the long route. Sometimes we nail it right when we put the downbeat on the song. You know, it all depends, but I think Chris is a guy that, not only do we groove spiritually, we groove, uh, when it comes to us leaning into God, uh, for what we need to get done each day. We do that together, and then, at the end of the day, we know that, "Hey, whether we're gonna use this or not, we gave it everything we have."

["Get Back Up" by TobyMac stops]

TobyMac: The second producer's Dave Wyatt, D-Dubb, who's done several remixes for me and also co-produced "No Ordinary Love." You know, Dave is in my band, of course. He's music director, if you know him. He's, uh, keyboardist and the dude that basically runs my live show. Dave is also a great producer, a guy that, you know, I write songs with. We had a couple songs goin' on—on this record. So far, the second one might be a—a later bonus track, but the song I'm doin' with him is called "Funky Jesus Music," and, uh, Dave is that. Dave is the funk man. He's from Virginia Beach, uh, right where the Neptunes kinda came up. And, uh, he thinks and lives and breathes funk, so he's the perfect man to do a song like "Funky Jesus Music." So, I'm workin' with a guy named Jamie Moore.

["City On Our Knees" by TobyMac starts]
TobyMac: Jamie is a—is a guy that I work with all the time. I write songs with them all the time. He-He's, uh, in the same studio that I'm in. He's produced quite a bit of Ayiesha Woods, some Stephanie Smith for us, so he's sort of, like, a staff writer, E-Mac and one o' my boys. "City" came quickly, so we just jumped on it. Usually, we would pass it over to Chris, but Jamie's quite the producer himself, and I feel like he really had a handle on the directions the song needed to go, so I stuck with Jamie on that one.

["City On Our Knees" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: "City On Our Knees" ended up being the first single mostly because of—I think just 'cause of pure passion in the way it was breathed through me and to my friends. The plan was for "Get Back Up," um, another song, to be the first single, and it was mixed and ready to go. It was due in about three weeks, and I was writing a song with a guy named Cary Barlowe and Jamie Moore—two of the co-writers of "Made to Love"—and we were just working on this song, and it—we took a break, and Cary and I walked into my studio from Jamie's studio. And Cary just started playin' the guitar, and we just— Literally, it was birthed immediately. We started singin' this song. I mean, I've never experienced anything like that, honestly. "City On Our Knees" came in an instant. I mean, it's—it was probably a 20- to 25-minute write, which for me—a guy that songs typically take three or four months to write—that was… You know, you just look up and you go, "All right. All right, God. I get it, you know? You—You chose to breathe this one through us quickly." It's evidence to me that it wasn't me, because if it was me, it woulda taken three months, but we know what happened here. And we just looked at each other and we were kind of, like— It was one of 25-minute runs, 30-minute runs where you just look up and you're sort of out of breath and exhausted because you know what just went down creatively.

["City On Our Knees" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: And then we had everything but the bridge, and I remember I went home that night and I—I wanted to say somethin' that really summed up the song, and that's when I came up with, "Tonight could last forever / We are one choice from together." We came in the next day and—and I laid down with Jamie and Carey, and it really was that simple. And at that point, we were sitting on this song, and, you know, I'm, like "This is the statement. This is the song. This is the one that I didn't get in the way of. This is the one that I know God breathed through me." And I called EMI, and they're always very gracious. My label's always been gracious with me about sort of shifting if I felt something in my heart. And I felt that this was the first single, and—and they were very open to it, uh, even though we were all ready for "Get Back Up" to be the first single. And we moved on a dime, and, you know, three weeks before the thing went out almost, the song was written or conceived, written and recorded. "City On Our Knees" is really about a moment—a moment that we all come together to a place where there's no judgment but really love, and we choose to recognize one God together. And it's really a reminder that that moment could be right now, tonight, and in that moment judgment, sort of falls by the wayside. We choose to step across the line, whatever side we're on. Love fills in the cracks and—and makes up the difference.

["City On Our Knees" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: I probably said this in the interviews for Portable Sounds because it is the way it goes down. It is the way I believe it works for me. I have this picture of myself as—as a hollow vessel. So, when I walk in the studio each day and when I walk in to write, I just sort of ask God to breathe through me, and I try to hollow myself so that He can breathe through me.

["City On Our Knees" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: Many times, all the junk that's in my life—all my insecurities, frustrations, temperament issues, the busyness of life—all these things sorta get in the way and clog me, uh, from being that hollow vessel. But the picture in my mind is, "All right. I need to get right before I sit down to write this song, before I sit down to record this vocal. So, God, you know, hollow me. Hollow me of of all that junk so that You can breathe something fresh through me. Fresh so it will build Your Kingdom, so it will remind people how much You love them, so it will wake someone up to Your love for the very first time." And I—I trust that God will do that. I have the faith that He'll give me something special, not—not for me, not for Toby, not to build TobyMac, but because—because music is something that can actually open people's minds to Who God is. It-it's not really music that does it, 'cause music will never change the world, but God can choose to use music, and that's what I count on.

["City On Our Knees" by TobyMac stops; "ShowStopper" by TobyMac starts]

TobyMac: So I just wanted to give you a little taste of what's comin'. Uh. this is one of the songs on the record that is on the hype side. It's one of the songs that, you know, I see in action films, uh, playin', you know, before the Super Bowl kicks in, whate— (chuckles) Whatever. You never know where these songs are gonna land, but this is a song called "ShowStopper."

["ShowStopper" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: "ShowStopper"'s this song is all about who's gonna stop the show. "This is the big moment." One of the lines that I love is "Hope just broke right through the door." That to me is the show-stopper—the hope we have in Christ. Bang. He's the show-stopper.
["ShowStopper" by TobyMac stops; "Get Back Up" by TobyMac starts]

TobyMac: The song "Get Back Up" is, uh, it's really personal for me. One of my friends was really goin' through it, and I—and I wanted to be there for him. I tried to walk with them through his situation, um, and I think… It's not, like, his situation. We've all been there. We've all been to a point where we feel inadequate, we feel a little bit worthless to the cause. Uh, worthless, you know, like we don't—we're not worthy of God's love. We're not worthy of our friends' love. We're not worthy to participate in whatever's goin' on all. Um, of us have been there, man. We—we just sort of lose our way for a minute. And that's what this song's all about. We all lose our way, but we give back up. We all fall, but we get back up. Um, and I wanted my friend to know, and anyone out there to know, that when you're in that position—when I'm in that position… What do we want to know? We want to know that love is calling us—that grace is calling us.

["Get Back Up" by TobyMac continues]

TobyMac: A couple o' my favorite lines in the song are "You may be knocked down but not out forever." And then, uh, the bridge says "This is love calling out to the broken / This is love calling." And—and that's what we want to know. I wanted this song to be that sort of, uh, whisper—"Hey. You know, love is calling you, man. You know, I'm here for you. I know you're broken, but I'm here for you." Uh, and that's… As a friend, I want to be there for my friend, but I also know without a shadow of a doubt that God is there for him.

["Get Back Up" by TobyMac stops; "Changed Forever" by TobyMac starts]

TobyMac: One of the things I love havin' is guest vocalists on my record, and, uh, this girl's not really a guest 'cause she's part of what we do, uh, Nirva Ready, formerly Nirva Dorsaint—which I think Nirva Ready sounds cooler anyway—uh, sings on a song called "Changed Forever." It's just really about the moment—that moment that you turned and you saw God's face, and how everything that mattered before doesn't matter anymore, and everything that should matter certainly matters. And by the way, Nirva killed it.

["Changed Forever" by TobyMac stops]

TobyMac: So, I mean, this record is really the last two-and-a-half years of my life of writing, going into the studio every day. Some of the songs we started recording a year-and-a-half ago. Sometimes I just wish people could know how much this process means to me and how I don't approach records, songs and what I do live haphazardly. The passion is—is oozing out of me when it comes to my records. The—the perfectionist side is getting battled down 'cause I want it to feel good, but the perfectionist side is getting raised up because I think that feels good but it has to make sense, um, and it has to be right, it has to be perfect. (chuckles) I don't know if it's good or bad, but there's this range of emotions that come with makin' a record. Um, I want to say the things that God wants me to say. I want to say them in a way that I would say them. I want to say them in a way that anyone can relate to them. I want to say them in a way that it can move people's lives forward, move people toward God. And if—if I'm accomplishing that, you know, whether or not anyone loves this record, as long as I feel like that is what I'm doin', I feel like my job is done.

["ShowStopper" by TobyMac starts]

TobyMac: And hopefully it's something that you guys relate to, that you connect with, because I know one thing—when we come to your city, there's gonna be a party, and you are invited.

["ShowStopper" by TobyMac stops]