Rolemodels

🗣J.Cole ... “No role models and I’m here right now.” 🤔💭
I was 17 years old... Already recording and performing for a few years/selling mixtapes I signed up for this international competition my school was taking part in. After the first round performance, conversations began amongst some adults who wanted to get me in contact with some of the major labels, and by the second round for the city... even more.


I remember sitting in the first major meeting with Violator management. After waiting in the lobby, I saw L.L. Cool J leave the building coming out of an album listening party. When I was called in to the meeting room to dialogue and play a few of the tracks I had compiled in a Demo I remember the side talks around the room. They eventually arrived at, “He’s good; but he’s too conscious for the market.” This proceeded from place to place, even as I met with independents such as one owned by Floyd Mayweather a year later.... This was before I even fully came to my faith.


Fast forward a few years. I’m speaking and performing - this time at a big event in Staten Island. We were on the drive back, and a missionary here from Korea riding with us started a conversation about childhood influences and “role models”. The others in the car along with myself speaking from the perspective of minority Americans all expressed that due to family issues, school, the abuses which caused mistrust in church, society, etc our main influences and teachers were the rappers. Most of us didn’t have Fathers in the home, attended public schools, and were affected by things that left us finding our only hope in these “celebrities that looked like us.”...


I’m grateful to the Cole’s and Kendrick’s, and others who although are not directly religious or anything like that but in this current market that dictates poison to our communities serve as a voice of truth and hope in that space. Whether they know it or not - they are many times a voice of God in a dark space. 🌎 💡🗽🌇🌃
#SainthoodInTheCity #hiphop #jcole #faith #rolemodels #encultured @allislovemedia #ministry #nyc #hope #eucharisticworldview

-The Symbol
​- All is Love