Young Noah

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself because it is not there. There is no such thing.”—C.S. Lewis

Everybody’s got a story, this much is true, but for a young rapper named Noah, his life’s journey has a decidedly cinematic quality, full of thrilling twists and turns and even a surprise ending to boot.

To wit, if someone had ever told the guy who grew up in small-town Georgia that his future plans would involve rapping about Jesus, well, he would’ve never believed them.

Growing up in what he describes as a “pretty crazy community,” Noah was an interesting study in contrasts. Homeschooled until 5^th grade and raised in a family where associating with anything remotely worldly was taboo, the day-to-day existence outside the four walls of his childhood home was a dangerous one.

“I was scared to walk down the street by myself because there was so much gang activity going on,” Noah remembers. “We used to have crackheads knocking on our door because I think the last person who’d lived in our house was a drug dealer. At one point, things were so bad, the local police made people move to different communities.”

Once Noah actually began going to a “real” school, he was recommended to the local Boys & Girls Club because it was a gang outreach program. “They helped kids from becoming just another statistic,” Noah explains. “So it was definitely a great thing to be a part of.”

It was during his time with Boys & Girls Club when Noah first started experimenting with rhymes and beats. And as one of the program’s role models, the first songs he wrote reflected on positive themes, namely having the courage to say no to drugs, alcohol and gangs.

Despite coming to Christ at a young age and being a regular fixture at Boys & Girls Club, however, the normal teenage pressures of popularity and doing whatever it takes to fit in eventually took their toll. Not surprisingly, the new music Noah was writing also reflecting his changing worldview.

“The songs went from being positive to swaying a little bit into what the world wanted to hear,” Noah says. “So I began talking about whatever was cool—sex, drugs, money—and I started running with the wrong crowd. Little by little when the world’s clutches are around you, you begin to stray from what you know to be true, and that’s exactly what happened to me.”

Acting what he describes as “young” and “foolish,” the situation only escalated once he experienced the new freedoms that came with college life. And it was during this time when something happened that would forever shape Noah’s life.

While attending a party with a bunch of drunk football players, a couple of girls asked Noah and a friend if they could have a ride back home because they were afraid of what might happen if they stayed much longer. Apparently, not happy with them offering to help the girls, the football team surrounded Noah’s car, and eventually, a shootout broke out.

“Three shots went through the car I was in, and I almost lost my life because I was some place I shouldn’t have been,” Noah recalls. Making matters worse, a misunderstanding about what went down also resulted in a short jail sentence. “Even though I didn’t do anything, there were a few charges that were eventually dropped,” he continues. “But I ended up getting kicked out of school over that anyway, so that was hard to deal with.”

Naturally, Noah found himself in a reflective place after the incident and wondered how in the world his life went so horribly wrong. But even after God spared his life and he escaped what could’ve been an early death, things only got worse. Feeling like his life was irrevocably messed up, the wrong crowd not only became Noah’s company of choice, but he started getting involved with the very activities he’d always spoken out against—drugs, alcohol and gang-related stuff.

Despite his change of heart and demeanor, God still never stopped pursuing Noah. Funny enough, it was a night when he was drunk when God began stirring his heart. “I remember I was driving, and God spoke to me. Not audibly of course, but to my heart,” Noah shares. “He began to ask ‘What are you doing with your life? How did you end up here?’ Look at the example you’re setting for your brothers.”

In that moment, Noah knew he needed to change for good this time. So the self-professed thug with the gold teeth and long dreadlocks rekindled his relationship with God, a decision that set his life on an entirely different course.

After briefly considering an offer to pursue a career in mainstream music with the group he fronted, Noah knew that despite all the glitzy perks, it wasn’t the right move for him. In fact, he was pretty sure after turning the opportunity down that he was done with music altogether. While he always loved rap, he just never envisioned himself being a Christian rapper.

“I don’t know why, but I always thought rap wasn’t supposed to be Christian,” Noah shares. “So I decided I was just going to be a Christian, live for God, stop sinning, partying, clubbing and the whole nine yards, and that was it.”

But when someone has the creative instinct, well, you can’t step away for too long, which is precisely what happened to Noah. After taking almost a year off from music, Noah went to school and began seeking God. During this time, he was reading the Bible constantly and getting the spiritual nourishment he’d been lacking back in this partying days.

“Things were bothering me in my life, though, so I decided I was going to write a song about it,” he says. “I think I called it ‘Satan, Quit Bothering Me.’ And after that, I wrote another song, and before long, I was writing all these songs just to minister to me.”

As he continued his education at the University of West Georgia, Noah began frequenting local open mics, which eventually resulted in an opportunity to have his music featured on a mixtape. After that, he was encouraged to submit a demo to renowned Christian rapper Flame’s new record label, something he resisted initially until God, once again, nudged him in another direction.

And the rest, as they say in showbiz, is history. After hearing Noah’s songs, Flame wanted to meet the man behind the music and make sure his love for God was for real. Eventually signing Young Noah to Clear Sight music, a boutique label with a diverse roster of artists committed to sharing God’s message in innovative ways, Noah is exactly what he never expected to be—a guy rapping about Jesus.”

“I’m still blown away by how God has worked in my life, and I’ve been writing like a maniac in the meantime. I may even have enough material for six albums by now,” Noah jokes. “See, what’s so great about rap is that it’s almost like a sermon. I think it’s the most direct way you can communicate through music, and yet you can bop your head to it. I can talk about ten different things in one rap song, and I absolutely love that.”