Soul P: Behind the Bling
01-02-2007
by Brenten Gilbert

Through the blinding shimmers of bling and camera flashes, you can see that the man behind the latest release from Beatmart Records has a story to tell. Soul P, formerly known as Soul Plasma, recently released his third full album, The Premiere, getting his first taste of a label push and a chance to share his music on a broader stage.

Before he got to this level, however, Soul P's led what some might consider a "hard knock life." He's confident that his life was completely and remarkably orchestrated by God. In a recent interview with him, Sr. Editor brenten gilbert had a chance to hear the heart of the man behind the music as well as getting information about the new album.

Below is that interview for your enjoyment.

For the sake of those who think that you are a brand new artist, can you give us a brief rundown of your music career?

Sure. In 2002, I, well Syntax Records, released a record called Acts 29. I was one of three MCs on [that album]. In August of 2003, I released a debut solo album, Simply Soul independently and then in January 2006, my sophomore solo release, Soul Effect. Now, being with Beatmart [Recordings], I have my freshman or whatever major debut release coming out December 26th called The Premiere. So, as a brief rundown, that has been my career so far. And I've been on various mixtapes and collaborations and all of that.

You're a busy guy and you've been pretty successful as an independent artist. Why sign to Beatmart now?

Honestly, it was just the best deal for me. I was successful as an indie, but I wasn't. . . You know, I definitely wanted a better push as an artist because it was still a struggle. It wasn't like I was so successful that I was really paying all the bills, I just had a good buzz. The deal with Beatmart basically is just a good situation. Me and Todd Collins talked for a whole year before I even signed the paperwork. We just built a relationship with each other for a whole year. We pretty much had the same vision as far as what we wanted to do and we clicked real well as people moreso than just through the music. And plus, Beatmart means working with Todd Collins. Anyway, he's a pioneer as far as the Christian market goes. For me, especially with the good deal that they gave me, I honestly thought I'd be foolish to turn it down and just continue to do what I'm doing as an indie artist. I could have a better push and still have creative control of what I do because Todd Collins is open to any ideas that I have. On this record, Todd Collins handles the majority of the production, but as far as the songwriting goes. . . Even on all of the production, I picked all of the beats that I wanted to use for the album and the songwriting was all me. Everything. I wrote every hook. Everything. Todd was very open. We got into the studio and we had good chemistry. So, as far as me going to Beatmart, it was plan and simple. It was the best thing for me at the time and it still is the best thing for me.

Is that going to change your target audience at all?

I want the world as far as that goes. I'm not a dude that discriminates on my audience, whether they are underground heads or they are the mainstream, commercial, suburban kids or the kids of the ghettos. My target audience is everybody. Obviously, on this new record, it is a lot more mainstream with a good commercial feel on some songs, but it's a very soulful feel, too with a raw edge, too. I call this album commercially driven with a real soulful edge to it. So yeah, we want the masses to hear it. I think Christian hip-hop is for the masses because the message is for everybody. The Gospel, what we speak, is for everybody and there is life for everybody so I definitely feel as far as me being on the major, it does target a different audience and it gives me more of a outlet, more resources to get people that I wouldn't have got doing it as an indie in my area, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Do you think that being on a Christian label is going to limit your ability to reach the "mainstream market" at all?

No I don't. It depends on the music. People identify me with the Christian label, but I don't think they identify it that much. If the music is hot, they enjoy the music and I really feel it don't matter. Like when people heard Jesus Walks, that's something that in the mainstream was something different. Even though people hate on Kanye. . . You know, whatever - He's not living that life, however people want to dice it - but plain and simple that song was hot. Even people who say they don't like Kanye West they can't but.admit that they actually enjoyed that song. So I feel like with music in general, if it's hot or good enough, music people have a tendency to appreciate it. So all I've got to do is keep putting out records that are real hot records and the masses will embrace it. So putting a tag on it is like. . . I don't believe in putting a tag on it. I believe it's music and God gave us music. I just believe it's music and if it's good enough and it's great and it's great songs, people are really going to embrace that music. If they can identify with what you are talking about, it's not hard to break through and have everybody in the world loving what you do.

Definitely. This is something you've obviously talked about with Todd. . .

Oh yeah. We definitely want to push it to the mainstream audience. We feel this record - I know I do and I know Todd do equally, because we've talked about it - this record can cross over. With the right push and everything we've got going for it, we can cross over. I don't want to put no limits on it like, "God only wants it to do this." I'm like, "God do what you want to do with this record." We are going to work as hard as possible to do everything that we do and make sure that the message is out there. You know, the message of Christ and the Gospel is out there. And then put out hot records. That's what we want to do. We want to put out good records without compromising our message.

Certainly. The lead single, "Whoa-Whoa" seems specifically groomed for radio.

Definitely. Definitely. We shooting a video to that too. We are working on the dates. That will definitely help out a lot.

Yeah, for sure. So can we talk a little bit about your testimony? I read through your bios and, well, how about I just hear it straight from you?

Well for me. . . I wasn't raised in the church at all. That wasn't my background - being involved in the church - but God was definitely a part of my family as far as the belief in God. Like, from a young age, I had a belief in God. My mother - when I was three years old - she went to the penitentiary and my biological father was never around. He went to jail for manslaughter. He was a big-old pimp all throughout Seattle, Washington. He wasn't just like 'some guy' he was 'The Guy,' you know? When my mom went to the penitentiary, I was adopted by a friend whom I consider to be my father to this day. [It's him that] I call, who I go visit 'cause he's getting older now - he's almost eighty years old now. But that's my father. He was a family friend who kept me involved in my neighborhood and with my other immediate family. So at a young age, I had a good life. Christmases were good. Birthdays were good.

As I started getting older and being in my household, it was full of drugs. I was raised in the 80s in an area called Yesler Terrace in Seattle, Washington. So being in a neighborhood that was a drug-infested neighborhood, my house was filled up with drugs - in and out of the house and stuff like that. It was the way that my father made a living - selling pills, marijuana, anything - that is what came out of my home. At the young age of 3 or 4 and on up. I did have everything I wanted at that age, but when I got older - around the ages 10 or 12, around those ages. . . Honestly, I played football at a young age. I played football for 7 or 8 years. I played basketball and was a ball boy for the Huskies. I did all that. I went to all of the basketball camps, but around the age of 10, I started seeing things and understanding things as far as the drugs and stuff.

Around 11 or 12, I started smoking weed and I started stealing the marijuana from my home. At that age, stealing marijuana, things changed in my life as far as family goes. I wasn't doing good in school. I was once an honor roll student, I stopped being an honor roll student. I stopped playing football, stopped playing basketball and [started] just really running the streets. Once I started stealing the drugs and the money from the house, I began to clash with my father. I would run away all of the time and do things of that nature and then I thought of selling crack cocaine in downtown Seattle, Washington. Going back to where I used to live at - stealing money and weed, breaking into the house and going back out on the street selling crack and doing things like that - I ended up robbing a kid and getting charged with robbery at the age of 13.

After robbing my house so much, there was one of my father's friends who was an older dude, a lot older and 6' 4". He came and beat me up real bad and then the police came and took me to jail for burglary. So with all of these charges on me, I had to go to jail for like seven and a half months at the age of 14. I ended up getting out and moving to Portland with my mother, because my mother - at the time - was clean and sober. She was married and I had brothers and sisters, so I came to Portland, Oregon to live with her. I thought I wouldn't get into no trouble in Portland when I wasn't with my friends.

But she lived in the same gang-infested neighborhood of North Portland, so I got back involved with the gangs and selling drugs. The drug spot was right around the corner from my house, so I ended up, like I say, being involved with the gangs selling drugs again. I wind up getting shot, stealing cars, selling crack, caught with various drug charges and doing juvenile time - I was in and out of juvenile constantly. Finally, after I got shot and I still didn't learn. I was still hanging out on the street, then I had to go to jail for five months for dope charges. My probation officer didn't want to send me up, so they sent me to more of a jail/group home type of thing. I got out of that and like a month later I sold more drugs and got caught on camera again.

Inside the boot camp, the minister that would come minister the Gospel, which for me - like I said before. . . At a young age, I always knew about Christ. I was baptized at a young age. I had very little understanding, but I definitely believed in God and knew Christ had died for my sins. So in jail, I gave my life to Christ in jail. To everybody, there is always jail convicts who go to jail and get their lives right with Christ and get out to do the same thing, but God had another plan for me. When I got out of jail, in less than 24 hours, my mom took me to a youth service that I really didn't want to go to. But for whatever reason - which was God's plan - I got up and went to the youth service. In the youth service, I seen them rapping and talk about Christ through music and I never knew that nobody rapped in church. That wasn't something I fathomed at all - I didn't think they allowed that. But when I seen them rapping, that is what kind of grabbed my attention - besides the ladies. When you are in jail for nine months or for whatever amount of time without women, you get out of jail you see women. You see a lot of youth, a lot of young girls running around and so I wanted to stay because of that too, thinking, "This is cool. These are good girls. . ."

(laughs)

So it was November 18th, 1998 when I really got involved in the church. They let me get involved with rapping [at the church]. When I was young, I was always rapping, but it wasn't anything that I took seriously - I didn't take it to heart like I do now. But that got me plugged into the youth group because they allowed me to get on stage and rap which I thought was real cool and it was a lot of fun for me to release some of these things through the music. Pretty much after that - since 98 - I've been involved in the church whether it's rapping or whatever.

But a couple years ago, concerning my testimony, I kind of went back to the streets and I got away from the church, because of the politics and whatnot. It wasn't the right thing to do, but I got away from the church and it was another eye-opener for me that [eventually] got me right back on track. For a while, I felt like I got religious and started just going through the motions, So a few years ago, in 2004, I got away from the church and got back into trouble with the law because of something with drugs.

Being a rapper in the market, on the indie scale it was a big wake-up call for me in my life because I realized that I was just wasting my life again. That's like a family curse. My family's always involved with drugs and always going to jail. So I got back on the streets and wound up back in jail. Thank God it wasn't a long sentence - it could've been two years. Fortunately I was released on a thirty-day work release with no community service and a year of probation, which I've now completed. But, I got done with all that stuff and it really brought things back into perspective. I owned a home when I got caught with these drugs. I was married - because I got married in 2003 - and I had a two-year old son. And so it brought everything back into perspective as to how the enemy can slide into your life and destroy your life if you allow him to [by] falling back into your old ways. And that's exactly what I did.

The good thing about the story, though, is that after I got through with all the court cases and getting done with everything. That's when I got the call from Todd Collins about wanting to sign me. And I was very open with Todd about my current situation. My life was right in my heart. I was dealing with some things, but I was back working out all the issues that I had in my life. And I'll never forget what Todd said. He said that he appreciated my honesty about the situation and that made him want to work with me more. Because I didn't try to come at Todd with this holy, "my life is perfect," routine like I'd fit right in on a Christian label. I told him that I realized that he'd built up Beatmart to this point and I knew who he was as a producer. It was an honor that he wanted to work with me, but I had to tell him the whole story. I explained what had happened and that I was done with it, but still facing the repercussions of dealing with it. He told me that he wanted to work with me even more and I think that's why he let us build [a relationship] over a whole year. So that I could work out every situation that I needed to work out. So after working it all out, that's what makes the relationship between Todd and me even deeper. He didn't just point the finger at me and say that I was a bad dude or anything like that. He said that it was respectable that I told him everything up front. It was weird though, because it was November when I got the call years after I had first been released from jail. It was weird that it was the same month.

That right there was a real wake-up call and gave me a real purpose. Another part of the story that amazed me is that when I walked into the county jail, after spending two days there and being sick, I saw a kid who I used to disciple in my youth group. So that was crazy and he didn't even look at me like I was a bad dude or anything. But he was asking me questions about life and asking how I could help him. Obviously, I didn't feel like ministering to anyone. I'd been numb from the Word of God for five months or so, but I felt like God was just taking something that was supposed to be a really bad situation and using it for good. So I got a chance to minister to him and by ministering to him, I ministered to myself about God's grace and forgiveness. And after we got out, we continued to build.

There was also and older KKK guy in there with me, who, after we started talking, I actually helped get out of jail. I helped him contact his family down south. This was something, like, I wasn't preaching to him or anything, I was just showing the love of God even from that difficult position. And I helped him get out and he told me that his whole outlook on black people had changed. His own family wouldn't help him get out of jail, but I let him call my house and helped him get in touch with his family and eventually get out of jail. Something like that reminded me that God is always faithful. He can turn bad situations into good situation. And it really just gave me a revelation of how good God is despite religion and people.

So that's basically my story. I know it's long, but I gave my life to God in 1998 after going through Hell as a teenager. Drugs ruined my life of playing football and basketball for me, but again, God turned that around and now, even more than through sports, I have an opportunity to minister to the world by sharing what he's done for me and what he can do for others through my music.

Very cool. Now, it seems like it's very easy to fall into these traps and cycles of behavior that spiral downward in life. The sins of your family can follow you forever. If someone came to you and they seemed to be headed down the same path, what kind of advice would you give them to help break out of that pattern?

Well, the main thing is that they have to want to change. That's the advice I would give them is that they have a desire to really change. For me, people used to talk to me all the time about God, but I wasn't ready to change so it was like they were casting pearls before swine. It was good that they gave them to me, 'cause I did listen, but I wasn't ready to really change.

So with somebody like that, I'd first ask if they were ready to change and then after that, we'd start by doing things that are different from what they're used to doing. I wouldn't tell anyone to just reject all their old friends, but there's a time when you need to just separate yourself from those people and get around good people who are living the way that you want to live. Get involved in a church. Get involved with people who you can relate with, who have come from a similar situation, who you can bond with. And the main thing is to get around people who you can trust. People with whom you can share your innermost secrets, what's in your closet. People who won't betray you. I've had that happen to me. Not people who won't respect you or have love for you because you're dealing with these issues, but people who will show you more love because they understand God's love. They're dealing with their own sins, too.

The main thing though, is that they need to get around good people and really want to change. Once you want to change, God can really use that. You make an attempt and God can use it. I believe that if you take a step towards God, He'll take five towards you. You've got to have that willingness to change. Take a look at your life and decide if that's really what you want from it. If you're going down - like my family is messed up, I don't have a job, I'm strung out on drugs, whatever. Ask yourself if that's how you really want to live and if it's not, the next step is to start heading in the right direction.

That's the advice I would give them, but if they came to me personally, I would do my best to be available to them. It's not enough to just talk to people about stuff like that if you don't help them. I would either personally help them, or if I wasn't able to really reach out to them, I would help them get plugged into some local resources.

Definitely. . .

It can be really hard to just let go of everything you have done in the past. Maybe it's what's consumed you for the past twenty years, you can't just wake up one day, accept Christ and just have all your problems disappear. You have to be determined to change and no matter what, keep walking towards this path of what you want to do. And don't separate yourself from the good people. That's what I did when I failed most recently. I left the church and went back to the streets. And that's not to say that they're bad people, but the activities that they were doing obviously got me into trouble.

Sounds good. You want to talk a little bit about the album?

Yeah. It's called The Premiere and it's out [as of] December 26th everywhere.

What can we expect from the album?

You can definitely expect a hotter sound. That good commercial feel with a real soulful edge. I think it will surprise a lot of people, because I've grown as an artist. The album musically is definitely an experience in and of itself. It's very musical. There's a lot of live instruments being used, from guitars to bass to nice keys and violins. And it deals with a lot of different topics from taking a day for what it is and just focusing on today to what it means to be in love with your wife to working hard in your life. From dealing with issues of coming from nothing into something to talking to the younger generation. And it's a very diverse project as far as the sound goes. It doesn't get boring to you. You're not going to hear just one particular style from me as an artist or one particular style of production - there's a lot of different styles on the album, but the mesh together very well. It's a very well put together record. To sum it up, you can expect a hot record that's very musical all in one. It's got a lot of depth to it, but it's simple at the same time.

It's definitely different than your past releases. . .

Yes. It's very different than that. Those records were catering specifically to the underground. That was my entire audience and my entire focus. This record is catered to the world. It's catered to everybody. It has a wide range of music. There's gonna be some underground guys and backpackers who are just going to hate my record and I'll just give a thumbs up to those guys. But I believe that the masses will be able to enjoy it and I think there will be some underground heads who will enjoy it as well. The main thing, though, when I put this record together, I just did a record that I love. I didn't do it for any specific group, I just asked for God to pour out of me whatever He wanted to pour out from me. So when you hear this record, you can know that it all came from the heart. I didn't have any crazy agenda or anything, I just recorded what felt good at the time. I had fun making this record, so I hope people have fun when they listen to it.

Very cool. Is there anything else on your heart of mind that we didn't touch on?

My main thing is: support good music. Support gospel music in and of itself. Good wholesome hip-hop. I hope everybody will be able to enjoy the record. Log onto Beatmart.com or SoulPMusic.com for more info. Check out all the other Beatmart artists. And no matter what, know that Christ lives. He lives in you. If you call on that name and seek that name, no matter what you're enduring or going through, it'll be all right. That's what I've learned over the past few years. Never give up on yourself. If you fall, you need to get up and keep walking. If you don't get up, you'll never go anywhere. Don't keep looking to the past all the time, because the future is bright if you believe that. That's the main thing. Believe in yourself, believe in your future, but most importantly believe in God. And with all that, right there. Your life will be blessed through all the turmoil and struggle. And another thing. Never give up on your family, because God has a plan for them also. Surround yourself with people who will never give up on you.

Find out more about Soul P and The Premiere at SoulPMusic.com or MySpace.com/SoulP