My Story
My Story
To understand my music, you have to understand the name: Storm Rider. It wasn’t just chosen; it was earned. It’s a testament to the belief that God sends us on a path through turmoil so we can become a testimony for someone else. I’ve learned to ride out the storms, and my music is the story of that journey.
That journey starts in D.C. You can hear it in the cadence of my flow, a rhythm born from a city that moves to the beat of Go-Go. But that city also held its own storms—I survived drive-bys and street violence, surrounded by a brokenness that I was determined not to let break me. I thought moving away would be the answer, but a move to Georgia just introduced a different kind of storm: a wall of discrimination and segregation I couldn't comprehend. It was proof that turmoil isn’t about a place; it’s a part of the world.
The real shift happened when I landed in Ohio. Here, I found a church and a pastor who helped me forge a new perspective. It was here that I truly learned to anchor myself in faith during the hardest times—the lights getting cut off, the job losses, the profound loneliness. I clung to the promise that God will never give you more than you can bear, and I learned that prayer isn't just a lifeline, but an absolute must for my creative process.
It was in that spirit that the artist in me was born. I’d always been around music—my dad played the keys and my mom sang in the church—but I started making beats for my brother, never intending to be the one on the mic. One day, I was messing with a beat inspired by The Doors' song "Riders on the Storm." I heard a way to reimagine it, to flip the darkness into a declaration of hope. That beat became the first song I ever wrote, and the very idea of being a Storm Rider—of riding out life's chaos to meet His promise—came to life.
Every song I create is part of that testimony. "Centerpiece" was born from a personal storm of distraction; it started as a hook I couldn’t shake, a reminder to keep Jesus at the center. The melody truly bloomed when my dad, who was visiting from Georgia, sat down and added his chords to the track. When the world was raging over racial injustice, I wrote "All Rise" not as a cry for war, but as a prayer for unity, because real change has to benefit all of us. Even my role as a father reshapes the music. My song "Beautiful" is a conversation with my daughter, an attempt to help her navigate her own struggles. It’s often easier to write my feelings in a song than to speak them aloud.
At the end of the day, I’m just a singer who loves what he does (seriously, karaoke goes hard in this household). My sound is steeped in the Southern Gospel. I miss the raw honesty of hymn-writers like James Cleveland and Hezekiah Walker. My testimony is simply the gospel shared through my own lived experience. My deepest hope is that my music will find the people who need to hear it, and for them, it will be a seed planted for a soul in need.