Mississippi rap artist Topher has blown past another goal today with the release of his album 222.

Within two hours of its release, 222 was the #1 hip hop album in America, as well as #8 overall.

Topher — a.k.a. Christopher Townsend — refers to himself as “a small kid from Kilmichael, Mississippi.” But others — like the Washington Post — have described him as “one of the leading conservative voices on the platform” of contemporary hip hop music.

He graduated in a class of 22 students after growing up in a single-parent household that dealt with alcoholism, abuse, and poverty. Now he’s a successful Black Christian conservative rapper known all over the country, and he’s graduated to a different kind of class and a different kind of life — that of an artist whose songs are making big waves. Read his story here.