Rapper Lecrae performing at Wheaton College

Lecrae has won Grammys, sold more than a million albums and rubbed elbows with pro athletes.

And yet he's a self-described outsider, a hard-to-define enigma in the hip-hop world. He's often called a Christian rapper, a label that "creates hurdles and is loaded down with baggage," he writes in his new memoir.

Actually listen to his lyrics, "baggage" aside, and it doesn't sound like he's rapping from a pulpit.

"I try to produce music that is life-giving and inspires people to hope, but it isn't just for the super-religious," he writes. "I want to address themes that people who aren't Christian can appreciate."

In an interview with the Daily Herald before his tour stops Friday at Wheaton College, the Atlanta father of three talks about insecurity and chronicling his past. This is an edited transcript.

<span class="Q and A">Q.</span> You're bringing your "Higher Learning Tour" to more than 30 schools and college towns across the country and Canada. What do you want Wheaton College students to take away from your music?

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> Hopefully, they will use every field of human endeavor to demonstrate how their faith is transformative and how it can inform every aspect of our society and culture.

But whether you go into law, whatever field you go into, it's an opportunity for you to use the gifts you've been given to do good and paint a picture of the kingdom at hand.

<span class="Q and A">Q.</span> Tell us about your new book, "Unashamed" (out May 3).

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> It is a memoir, I think a very necessary memoir in light of all the memoirs that are kind of spiraling out there now that really articulates a person who comes from a broken environment, a broken background, but has overcome a lot of those things and is really unashamed and unafraid to talk about the struggles, the pains, the flaws and the mistakes that have been made and have made me the person that I am today.

<span class="Q and A">Q.</span> You're sharing some personal details about your father's absence in your childhood and struggling with drugs. Why dig up those old wounds?

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> It's funny. I had to call my mom before I started writing and say, "Hey, mom there's some stuff I need to tell you that I haven't told you yet."

And of course I have friends and family who encouraged me that I did not have to tell these stories, that it was perfectly OK if I kept them to myself.

But I'm liberated from them. I'm healed from them. So I felt like these kinds of stories are the kind that help people know they're not alone. And I needed to be unashamed of them. They don't define me. I'm not defined by my past.

<span class="Q and A">Q</span>. What was the hardest part of looking back?

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> There's so many things. I think a lot of the pain and the trauma I caused my family, my mother specifically in dealing with my drug abuse.

And probably the level of misogyny and objectification of women was probably tough to look back upon, some of the things that I have ... really how little I valued them and their decisions.

<span class="Q and A">Q.</span> You're a Grammy award-winning artist, but you've still spoken out about being insecure.

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> I think it's just a natural propensity for us all; as you get older you find yourself more concerned with stability and taking care of priorities.

You're not as reckless. You're not as idealistic and so just being culturally relevant is not your ultimate priority. So that can cause some insecurity, specifically in the music industry, where relevance is everything.

And when you're dropping your kids off in the carpool line, you're wondering, is this cool (laughing)?

<span class="Q and A">Q.</span> How does your faith inform your career?

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> I think a lot of people, when they look at faith, it's something that is mostly used for converting people or getting them to do right or morally right or wrong things.

And I think, sure, those are elements, but there is another element that just informs how you appreciate, you know, a sunshine, a sunrise or how you value children or anything along those lines. That's really the basis for me, is just trying to see life through those particular lenses.

It's a lens of hope. It's a lens that gives me objective morality, not just kind of like, "maybe this is right. Maybe this is isn't right." Just some firm places to stand on as I'm making decisions and navigating through life.

<span class="Q and A">Q.</span> How do you juggle family with touring?

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> A lot of air miles. While a lot of artists during the tour breaks kind of hang out on the bus and go sightseeing in a new city, I just jet-set back home and spend my break with my family. It's a little draining, a little tiring, but it's worth it in the end.

<span class="Q and A">Q.</span> Wheaton College has made headlines about former political science professor Larycia Hawkins, who came under fire for saying Muslims and Christians worship the same God. What do you think about the controversy?

<span class="Q and A">A.</span> Especially when we're talking about other cultures, countries, faith, I think we like to simplify it, and it's extremely complex.

And without saying who's right or who's wrong or what's up and what's down, I would just say that similarly, to use a group which could be to some considered religious or more political ... people have a perspective on the Black Panthers as a domestic terrorist group, and though there may be members who demonstrated that, there were also people involved like my mother. And to me she's my mom, so there's nuances that are not just as black and white.