YunRo performs ‘Fly’ with DFOD
Montgomery music artist YunRo performs his song “Fly” with members of Different Flavors of Dance at The Sanctuary.
Shannon Heupel, Montgomery Advertiser
Rap and hip hop styles are as varied as any other genre, but often lean much more toward the explicit side.
“Everything’s about guns and drugs and sex,” said Montgomery artist Roosevelt “YunRo” Williams. Plus the “N” word gets thrown in a lot, which YunRo dislikes.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Rap and hip hop can be beautiful. It can be positive. It can even be a guide to faith. If enough of that side is put forward and the audience starts to demand it, who knows what could happen next?
“I don’t want to bash hip hop, the culture the way it’s going now,” YunRo said. “But I feel we need to be more responsible with what we’re putting out into the universe. Whatever you put into the universe comes back to you.”
Recently YunRo was part of a roundtable artist discussion with the Advertiser discussing their paths to positivity.
To see him now, it’s hard to imagine YunRo as anything but positive. He’s grown as a music artist and producer, podcast host and community activist who fights against gun violence and negativity.
Still, YunRo admits he was a troubled child.
“I didn’t have to grow up in the streets. I chose to grow up that way,” YunRo said. “My mom, she kept us in church. Every time I turned around, we’d be there. We’d go to church three times a day on Sunday.”
It made him want to sneak and stray.
“I wanted to be like my uncle,” YunRo said. “My uncle was a big dope man, out there slinging it. He changed his life eventually, but he had to go through what he went through. I kind of looked up to him. I wanted to have the money, the cars, all that. And it cost me everything.”
In the 11th grade, YunRo had a knack for music, but got expelled from school. “Everything went crashing down,” he said. “I had to go to private school to try to get my high school diploma.” That didn’t go as planned either.
He learned to rap and how to produce music, and said he listened to artists like Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Twista.
“I wanted to rap about the guns and violence, because I was living that life,” YunRo said.
He had a version of success, was touring and had a pretty successful song. But his idea of the music business didn’t go much beyond drinking, smoking and partying.
“Going to clubs and money, that’s all I cared about,” YunRo said. “I don’t own the masters to none of my old music.”
YunRo credits his wife, Anita, with bringing him back to reality and into a new path for music, career and life.
“I was put into a position where I could go and take care of my family,” YunRo said.
But his music’s message was still transitioning and explicit.
“I was on Alabama Massacre 9 with Noah Baker, and I was rapping about cutting people’s heads off,” said YunRo, who in the music video was wearing a bloody shirt and waving around a machete.
Soon afterwards something clicked when he heard his 8-year-old daughter singing his verse.
“Hearing her say that, I was like, ‘Naw, I’ve got to change that,’” YunRo said.
YunRo started taking down all his old music and began to rebrand himself.
“I had to learn, you can’t compromise your artistry to fit in,” said YunRo.
A short while later, he’d release the song “Street Life,” around which his much of his message and future foundation would be based.
“I started hearing a melody in my head. ‘Tell me how we’re supposed to make it out the struggle, when everybody’s killing one another.’ I prayed about it. I got on my knees by my computer and I prayed,” YunRo said. “And I said, ‘God, show me what it is that you want me to do.”
What he received was a message that he could be a difference maker and go against the hip hop grain. He’s still on that journey, and making new music to grow even beyond “Street Life.”
He’s not alone. The Advertiser spoke to five more local music artists who found their own music paths past negativity:
Samuel Pritchett
These days, Samuel Pritchett of One Nation One Light loves his music. That wasn’t always the case for the Wetumpka/Tallassee artist who goes by Shaman P.
“When I was younger, I made gangsta music,” Pritchett said. “I switched from that. I stopped cussing in my music. Then I went from not cussing in my music to just making it positive. It’s a big transformation.”
Pritchett said he’s trying to spread positive waves with his music, not only around the city but around the world.
“I believe the color of skin is just a delusion,” Pritchett said. “We’re all one through light. We’re all energy. We’ve got to make positive music for these kids to grow up to and listen to. That’s where my mission is.”
One Nation One Light performs Sand Castles
Shaman P and Outlaw Preacher (Bigi Paw) of One Nation One Light performs Sand Castles.
Shannon Heupel, Montgomery Advertiser
Joseph Fannin
Being real is especially important to Joseph Fannin (also known as Biggie Paw or Outlaw Preacher). Like Pritchett, he’s a member of One Nation One Light. He grew up on the music of the late Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.
“I was trying to fill that void of being an orphan kid being tossed around,” Fannin said. “I wanted to be hard, because evidently soft isn’t where it’s at.
He grew up in an orphanage, where he learned to be stern toward negativity. That’s a lesson that stuck with him when he became an artist himself: You can be stern, and still be positive.
“I try to stays real as I can on my music,” Fannin said. “Some of my stuff coming out is a little bit aggressive, but it’s aggressive in a positive way. It’s aggressive as in, ‘Don’t do that!’”
Kim Dewayne Pringle Jr.
Kim Dewayne Pringle Jr. (Kyng T) started off in regular hip hop before making to change to Christian music. Along with changing his rap style, Pringle overcame a learning disability to show his artistry and faith publicly.
“My music now is just trying to be the light, and trying to show people what God brought me from,” he said. “I came from a somewhat troubled past, mistreated and everything. I want people to see my past and see where I’m going now, and let them know that they can move to it. When they ask how I’m doing it, I tell them my higher power is helping me. Jesus.”
Kyng T performs Loose Lips Sink Ships
Montgomery Christian artist Kyng T performs Loose Lips Sink Ships
Shannon Heupel, Montgomery Advertiser
DWill TheSinger
DWill, who is YunRo’s brother, is an R&B artist from Montgomery who started young singing in church and school talent shows. After high school, he auditioned for competitions like “The Voice” and “American Idol,” and has done shows with live bands around the area.
But a little before that, he was at Alabama State writing poetry mixed with pain, but not gaining the traction he wanted as an artist.
“Early in my 20s, I kind of got into the club scene a little bit,” he said. “I made some pretty explicit music, because the music that I was making was kind of personal. No one in the area really caught an ear for it. As an artist, it’s frustrating because you want people to like your music, but sometimes you have to go with what’s the thing at the moment. It’s kind of like you’re selling out a bit.”
DWill took a step back from being a singer/songwriter for a while to focus on a career, but he’s back and writing new music.
“For the young kids, I’d tell them to just go for it,” he said. “A lot of times you get nervous and you think, ‘What if this happens?’ But you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”
Vy Moon
Vy Moon & Young Dal sing Get It Together
Christian artist Vy Moon and his son Young Dal perform “Get It Together.”
Shannon Heupel, Montgomery Advertiser
Vy Moon, a Texas native who went to school in Alexander city has been in Montgomery for 15 years, is a Christian artist whose latest song “Get It Together” features his son Dallas (Young Dal).
It’s a different life than what Moon experienced as a child.
Moon grew up in a single-parent home with his mom. She did her best to raise him in a Christian environment, but couldn’t shield him from music of the day. She’d buy him the clean versions of popular hip hop music, but he’d find a way to get the uncensored tracks.
“I loved hip hop. I grew up off hip hop,” Moon said.
Moon remembers when he was 15 and 50 Cent’s 2003 album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out. His mom bought it for him.
“The dirty version, not the clean version,” Moon said. “What it did for me was like, yo, I can have open dialogue with my mom. She could communicate to me, OK, I know that’s what they’re saying but that ain’t really how it’s supposed to go.”
As a father of four, he takes the same approach.
“I don’t want to get overprotective to the point that they can’t trust us or communicate with us, or come to us when they have real life issues, because they feel like we’re going to judge them,” Moon said. “I’m going to take my mom’s approach and meet them where they are. That’s what my mom did.”
For his career, Moon didn’t start out as a Christian artist. That part grew as his faith did, so that his music could match his lifestyle.
Though artists will take many paths to get to positivity, Moon believes more and more will lean their artistry that way when they see how successful it can be.
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Shannon Heupel at sheupel@gannett.com.
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