It was a monumental Dove Awards ceremony for Christian Hip Hop. Not only was there great rap performances, a rap artist was declared the Dove Awards' Artist of the Year.
Artist of the Year was awarded to Lecrae of Reach Records and 116. He had an excellent year with his music selling very well, and reaching both the Christian and mainstream media.
Rap/Hip Hop Song of the Year was awarded to Lecrae for "All I Need Is You". The lead single off his "Anomaly" album is a love song to his wife.
Rap/Hip Hop Album of the Year was awarded to Lecrae for "Anomaly". On its release week, it was the number 1 selling album in the USA on to the Billboard 200 albums chart. In Australia it hit number 6 on the iTunes chart.
Short Form Video of the Year was awarded to Andy Mineo and team for his video "You Can't Stop Me". The video was directed and produced by Kyle Dettman. It featured Andy walking around the city throwing Street Fighter video game styled attacks.
KB performed his song "I Believe" with Mattie of For Today. Him and bunch of dancers faced off against another group of dancers dressed in police riot gear. The performance ended with both sides joining together in dance. It was intended to explore the issue of police violence in the USA.
NF got to perform a different rendition of his song "All I Have" with a live drum-kit.
Tedashii and Derek Minor each got to perform at the awards ceremony.
A few Australians got awards... For King & County (who featured on "Messengers" by Lecrae) won Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year. Hillsong won many awards for albums and videos.
One of the night's presenters was Blanca, formally of the Group 1 Crew.
Other rap nominees were KB, Derek Minor, NF, Trip Lee, and Rapture Ruckus.
Here's the the full list of rap nominations for 2015.