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Knife crime is nothing new and it’s an issue that has weighed heavy on my heart for as long as I can remember. Every time a young person loses their life to a blade, it pains me. Just recently Jaden Moodie, was deliberately struck by a car, stabbed, and left to die in cold blood. He was just 14.

Growing up I struggled to express my feelings externally after a close friend was stabbed to death, so it became a habit for me to do so internally. It resulted in me developing an apathetic attitude and I shielded myself from difficult conversations.

I came to realise that isn’t the best way to go about things. I thought I was dealing with my issues quickly but all I was doing was storing them at the back of my mind. By holding back, I began to grow bitter about all the unresolved and painful problems that I had never spoken up about.

Writing music was an unexpected outlet for me. I’d get lost in my own world and write unfiltered thoughts on how I was feeling. Making those thoughts rhyme allowed me to be creative in my pain. Every verse written felt like a giant exhale and release that I very much needed.

My art was the gateway to me getting in touch with my emotions. I started to become deeply affected by the examples of evil and injustice that surrounded me. Tragic events would play on my mind for hours – and days – on end and the pain of others started to become my pain. I began to ask questions. Why is this happening? How can it stop? What can I do to help? God, where are you in this?

I’m not sure I have the answers but I think God cares. With all my questions and 7 billion people in this world, it sounds weird I guess, but I still believe God sees me. He sees the individual. He sees the one, and I like that .
Racism, sexism, terrorism, and every other ism and schism was chucked in my face so often that I stopped seeing the one. What I mean by this is that each news story had lost its individual impact and I couldn’t comprehend every headline as a real event that happened in a real place, to real people, with real lives. When I started to picture my loved ones and family members in some of the horrible situations I read about, it changed my thought pattern dramatically. Seeing the one means to always put yourself in the shoes of the individual. And even though I ain’t got all the answers, if I can do that, I know I’m moving in the right direction .

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