Toby McKeehan (or tobyMac, as he is professionally known) grew up in the northern Virginia suburbs in the shadow of Washington, D.C., where he fell in love with rap and hip-hop. While attending Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, during the mid-'80s, he met Michael Tait and Kevin Max Smith (aka Kevin Max), and the three friends formed the highly influential Christian pop group dc Talk, which mixed elements of gospel, grunge, and hip-hop into an immensely successful hybrid. When dc Talk ended in 1999, Mac went solo, releasing the well-received Momentum in 2001. A mixture of urban rock and hip-hop, Momentum garnered five Dove Awards and a Grammy nomination, and spawned the remix album Re: Mix Momentum, which saw light in 2003. Following pretty much the same formula, and even adding in a little dancehall reggae, McKeehan released Welcome to Diverse City in 2004. The formula worked again: the album landed tobyMac a Dove Award for Rap/Hip-Hop Album of the Year. Welcome to Diverse City received its own album-length remix in August 2005 with the release of Renovating->Diverse City. Released in 2007, Portable Sounds provided fans with another vibrant, genre-melding set of new material. It was followed in 2008 by the two-disc live set Alive and Transported, and in 2010 by an all new collection of studio tracks called Tonight. ~ Steve Leggett