I was born and raised in Aurora, Co. I’m adopted, birth father walked out. I grew up in a black community. I was in the minority. Growing up in a in a black man’s world, being a scrawny little white boy, I either had to make a name for myself or get picked on and bullied. I chose to make a name for myself, so I started smoking and drinking at a very young age, the age of 11 and 13. I got involved in the gangs in high school and that turned into selling drugs. When I graduated high school, I started dealing with the cartel in Arizona. I was doing a lot of big things and then cocaine got ahold of me. I was living real fast. I was going to church though, the only person in my family that’s ever gone to church. I went to a youth retreat in high school with my crew. Believe it or not, Chris Tomlin prayed for us after “How Great is Our God.” I stood up. All our hands were raised, tears in our eyes. It’s my first real Christian experience, you know, whole bunch of gang members and thugs and everybody treated us as though we were no different. At the end of that song, he asked for people to come down if they felt called to the ministry. I couldn’t spell ministry until about two years ago. So yeah, he prayed for me in ministry, but I went back to doing the same thing; living fast and living like an outlaw, running from the police, doing illegal activity.  

I moved to Nashville when I was 21 to get away from that lifestyle, to sing country music. People are like how do you go from gangs to country music? I’m like, you know, it was my way out. I’ve always listened to country music, I had a voice, I ran with it. Ended up getting addicted to crack in Nashville, about a year and a half after going through a big drug trafficking case. I had nothing to do with it, was just hanging out with the wrong people at the wrong time. When you drive a Jaguar, you kind of have a target on your back when you’re 21 years old. When I was in Nashville I heard the song “Jesus Take the Wheel” and it saved my life. After my court case was done there, I moved up to South Dakota because my adopted dad was from here, and when my younger brother graduated high school, they moved up here.  Went to church, got baptized in the river. Long story short, my ins and outs with the laws and my legal troubles really started to happen. I’m a three-time convicted felon, been to prison twice. But – I love big buts – but for the grace of God. I’m 18 years clean. Almost seven years sober, college graduate. I’m married. I have a son and two beautiful stepdaughters. My wife is now a little over four years sober. I’m working hard and just doing whatever the Lord tells me to. My wife and I are starting a hip-hop church here. We’re waiting for God to say “jump” and tell us when to start. We got a space. It’s only by the grace of God that I’m alive today and that is my hope. God is my story and that’s what I’m sticking to.