Aaron Hostetter - AKA - "Zealous"

Aaron Hostetter, one of our Spring 08 students, has a unique gift and calling for evangelization through Catholic hip hop.

Check out his bio below taken from his myspace account:

Aaron Hostetter, aka "Zealous", arrived on the Catholic hip hop scene with his first release, "Refocused" in 2004. An independent emcee (though his new cd "Battle For Souls" is being recorded and produced by www.phatmass.com), Aaron is a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville and enters the scene with hopes of being able to share his message through poetry set to ill beats. Ever eager to share his love of Christ and the Church, Zealous welcomes the opportunity to set hearts a blaze with his rhymes and encourages others to dive deeply into the mystery of Christ and His love for us. With experience performing @ the Proud2bCatholic music festival(s), Fan The Fire youth rally(s), and in Catholic High Schools from Cleveland, OH, to West Palm Beach, FL, Zealous can bring an entertaining show with a strong message of faithfulness to the Church. He was also featured in the National Catholic Register in November 2005. Zealous plans on becoming a youth minister after graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville with a degree in Catechetics. Zealous also has experience singing in the A Capella group called "The Beatitudes" of Franciscan University, and also has added vocals to a youth mass music ministry band called "Facedown" in his hometown parish. Some of his goals include answering the call of Pope John Paul II for "new evangelization" through music, upholding the sanctity of marraige, family and life, and supporting a movement which will spread awareness, talking to men about how women should really be treated by them, and likewise, to women about the dignity and respect they deserve from men (the biggest problem is that most people don't realize that how women are treated most of the time in modern society is nowhere near what they truly deserve, and since this mistreatment has become the norm it has become the only standard known for many women and men. This also leads to women settling for much less than what they deserve, among other things that snowball from it). CATHOLIC HIP HOP MOVEMENT "Catechesis entails a substantial amount of involvement and interaction with the culture and the vernacular being used. With this in mind, Catechesis must be continually renewed by a certain broadening of its concept, by the revision of its methods, by the search for suitable language, and by the utilization of new means of transmitting the message (Catechesi Tradendae 23). It is the task of the Catechist to teach the faith effectively and uncompromising while appealing to the contemporary culture. Above all, the Catechist should always be furthering his/her knowledge of the culture circumstances, and with this knowledge, seek to harness it for the spreading of the gospel." Look at Saint Gregory the Great. He devoted his resources for the development of music, music that would appeal to society and that would bring them into the truth of the Church teachings. After a while, they developed a mixture of monophonic and polyphonic singing styles and formed what is known as the Gregorian Chant. Hip Hop is not intrinsically evil. God can take it and use it for his greater glory. In fact, I would say that it brings hip hop into the fullness of it's dignity...in other words, it brings hip hop to it's apex, the height of what it is meant to be. It is important to note that this movement isn't trying to bring hip hop into Catholicism, but rather bring Catholicism into hip hop. This is taken from the mission of www.phatmass.com: "Phatmass is strongly opposed to advocating the use of hip-hop in the liturgy, as we do not feel it properly creates an atmosphere of reverence condusive to prayer" -TO BOOK ZEALOUS FOR A SHOW OR EVENT, CONTACT ZEALOUSRAPMUSIC@YAHOO.COM