01 Jan, 2019

You'd imagine that most songwriters start writing with the first line or the chorus. "Cycles," however, didn't start the way you'd expect. I have suffered from acid reflux (like almost half of America). Some of it is diet, some is stress. But it occured to me in the shower that the food I thought I had fully digested "was coming back up again...must be something I ate..." My battle with acid has been a troubled one; affecting my singing, affecting my skin, affecting my sleep. Most solutions

07 May, 2019

Listen, I know complaining is in our DNA. As humans, we lack stuff. As Americans, we want stuff. And Blacks, well, we expect not to get stuff. Those three realities created a culture that even the Church has not been able to counter. We shout, dance, sing, but also COMPLAIN. We are just as spoiled, just as pessimistic, just as negative, bent on scandal, and generally unhappy with the state of things: our lives, our relationships, our local church, the pastor’s sermon, what she’s wearing, what

09 Jul, 2018

Uh oh. Sounds pretty bad, huh? Well I want you to listen. The quality, integrity and potency of gospel music is not affected by the top pop artist or the state of hip hop. It is entirely based on the people that make up the gospel music industry itself. We aren't tainted by things external, only by things internal--not by what comes in, but what is put back out (Matthew 15). There are 6 billion reasons to be a gospel artist and I am certainly not complaining about this amazing life and career

18 May, 2018

Assuming nothing has changed, I was taught that every color could be made from red, blue and yellow, the primary colors. Yep, just Googled it. Every color that exists on earth, everything we create, paint, and build can be derived from those three colors. There are certainly pictures of me growing up wearing a horribly red and yellow tee shirt or a flat out blue hat, but by the time we reach adulthood we tend to have had our simple colors replaced by deep maroons, navy blues, and neutral colors.

12 Jan, 2018

Months ago [actually exactly a year ago], I wrote an apparently provocative article called “The Curse of Options.” It was not a post of excuses but reasons for the indecisiveness of some men (and some women, too) when it comes to committing to one person. I discussed how for some folks, having several “options” paralyzes them in singleness as they fear choosing one will mean missing out on something else—and something better. Up until that article, most things written about men and their

23 Sep, 2017

I love Olympic swimming. That one year, when Michael Phelps went crazy, I was glued to the races as much as I’d be for a Bulls Finals appearance (sigh…). The dude jumps off the diving board like its made of hot coal but what he and the other swimmers do next was always interesting to me. They “streamline,” which is to go deep underwater and just shoot forward for as long as they can, often covering a third of the length of the track. Regardless of how good he is, he rarely moved faster than when