Details

Storyteller: TJ
Tribe: Red Lake Band of Ojibwe
Created: 2018
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Transcript: I was always smart, always talented but a series of tragic events led to a destructive pattern of life for me, which included gangs/crime, addiction & depression for many years and unfortunately like many of my peers, I was on a the fast track to an early grave or a long prison sentence, all while I was trying to figure out who I was, what my purpose on this earth was and what to do with my life. I had a very unplanned and unexpected spiritual encounter with Jesus of the Bible that transformed my life & my mindset. This is my story...

Growing up, I was the baby of the family. Some of my earliest memories are going to church on Sundays, reading kid’s books with my dad at night, and bumming around town with my mom at thrift stores during the day. And yet other memories were visiting my sister in prison, our house being shot up with thirty-six bullet holes during a drive-by and also the police at our house coming to look for or arrest one of my siblings. I guess that you can say I had two lives, two worlds vying for my attention. My life has been filled with pain and trauma. I have had to endure a great deal in thirty years that I have walked the earth. I have had to visit my siblings in jail and prison, including my brother who is currently serving two life sentences at Rush City Prison. I have had to bury friends, including one of my close friends who died by gun violence when I was 18 years old. I have battled my own personal self-inflicted pain, due to my addictions, crimes and gang-lifestyle for many years of my life. I’ve had to endure much and have lost some of the closest people to me. Even more recently, including my mother who unexpectedly passed away three years ago this month, and my oldest brother who just passed away a few weeks ago from the cancer that he had been battling for the last few years. From age 12 to 21 I didn’t know how to cope with my trauma, my environment, my issues. A downward spiral of addiction, crime, parties, jail, violence, near death experiences, disappointment, hopelessness and darkness. All those dreams I had of playing college football went down the drain. All those A’s on my report cards turned to F’s or incompletes. Like so many on this earth I was gifted but I was also hurt, so I would drink more, smoke more, snort more, sell more drugs, commit more crimes, fight more people in an effort to somehow fill the void that was inside of me. Starting at age 23, unforeseen and unexpected events occurred that changed me forever. The first one was: I was at the local YMCA playing basketball, yet I was also addicted to cocaine and using it daily. While running down the court, I had an episode with my heart that I perceived to be a heart attack. It wasn’t, but the whole time it was happening all I could think about was where I would go when I died. These thoughts haunted me for months. The next thing that occurred was on my 21st birthday. I had been partying for two to three days straight, and at about 4 am I passed out on a couch in the house I was at. I had some time of spiritual encounter or out of body experience vision. It was like my spirit came out of my body and I was looking down at myself on this couch, and then I heard the voice of God speak to me and say “Son, I didn’t create you to waste your life and potential like this.” The next day I went and partied again, but something was different. It was like God was calling me. I had heard the stories, I had read the bible, been to church, but none of that was ever real to me. In fact, I despised church, Christians and Jesus for a good ten years of my life. I like many people always told myself that if God was real, then why is there so much pain in the world. Yet here I am in this hotel room wasted. I’m with like seven or eight other people, and at the end of the night I look around at everyone and I say, “Aren’t you sick of this life? All we do is party, do drugs sell drugs, hurt people, hurt ourselves.” At that point they began to look at me like I was insane. They told me that I was trippin and needed to go to bed. Then I did something I never thought I would do. I knelt down by the bedside and began to pray. I prayed out loud and said “ Jesus, God, if you’re real like everyone says that you are then surely you can come into my life and change me”. In that moment it was like a million pounds was lifted off of me, and for the first time in my life, I felt free, I felt peace. The next day my friends came over and partied again, but I no longer had the desire to. I had tried other ways, I had been to treatment twice. I had participated in various traditions, ceremonies and other religious activities, and for whatever reason none of them freed me like this did.

Fast-forward almost ten years later and I am a totally different man. I have a bachelor’s degree, I have a wife and a son, I have a good paying job. I have released four albums as a rapper and I have been privileged to share my story all around the country. Ten years ago, none of this would have ever been possible, if not for that encounter I had. Growing up as tri-racial, I had three cultures to learn about, understand or take part in – which has always been an ever-expanding experience. I think one of the ways in which it has changed for me is going from trying to understand my culture more and learn history and traditions to trying to understand what I represent as an educated successful Native man in a society that is either oppressed, misunderstood or simply ignored us for so long. I went from being a statistic and posterchild for what society often times thinks about people of color or in particular men of color would be, to getting sober going through the process of graduating from a university, making music, getting married and starting a family. And now I feel that I am a voice for my people and have been privileged to travel rap and speak to thousands of Indigenous people, and other people groups across this country. This humbles me greatly. I feel honored to be a voice for Indigenous people, yet that comes with a heavy cost and a burden to carry – but sometimes it feels like I am carrying Native America on my back while my people root me on from a distance. When in reality, I want my people to join in with me and begin to run the good race with me. I desire to not just be a voice, but to bridge the gap for my people. Yet it is not easy. I remember being the only Native in my entire school when I was attending a local university, and there were  multiple times that I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t give up because I felt like that education, that degree, wasn’t just for me, but it was for my people and for people like me who grew up being told by others and by ourselves that we would never amount to anything. I have been to close to fifty reservations around America, and I have seen so many talented people – gifted people who need an outlet. Who need a mentor. Who need someone to encourage them and tell them that they can make it. I often look at young people and I see myself, so I try to be a resource to them – a resource that I never had. While I still travel and do events at times, the majority of the work I do is in Minneapolis and in Little Earth. My work varies from being a youth pastor to a youth worker to a rapper and hip-hop educator. In all of this, and in doing so it had brought a sense of community to me personally. As a way to work with people on an individual day-to-day basis instead of the large events I was accustomed to. In doing so, I have a sense of family, and brotherhood with a lot of people. I look forward to seeing them as well as meeting new people almost on a daily basis, while being able to learn about them; learn from them and vice-versa. My story doesn’t end here and neither does yours. I leave you with a question: Does it bother you that when you look around society, you don’t see very many Native doctors, politicians, professional athletes, successful business owners, etc.? Because it bothers me. I have seen the potential, I have seen the gifts, and I hope and pray to one day see more Native peoples rise up and begin to walk in their destiny.