While most 14 year olds are consumed with homework, making and maintaining friendships and afterschool activities, TJ Lasinski--also known as TJ Prodigy--is making music, impacting people via original YouTube videos, and travelling the country.

Fueled by his and others' life experiences, the pop-rapper is making music to spread hope, tell other kids they're not alone, and to introduce them to God. His recent Flight EP, released this year, is turning a lot of heads.

After a recent show in New York, TJ Prodigy talked with NRT to introduce himself, his mission and his music.

Tell us about yourself.  We just want to get to know you. Tell us how old you are, where you live, and all that.

I'm a 14-year-old rapper originally from Syracuse, New York, and actually recently I just relocated to Baltimore, Maryland. I'm an inspirational rapper and I try to encourage kids to be themselves and follow their dreams and don't let nobody hold you down. I try to introduce them to God and just overall help them overcome something that's in their life that they're trying to get through. I've been performing for like two years.

How did you get started?

I got started because I was bullied in school all the time. When I was bullied I kind of made a song. My first song was about bullying, and I did that song with Tae Brooks. We made a song that talked about how I was bullied. It had three different situations in it where there was a kid that brought a gun to school. There was a kid that cut his wrists and stuff. I kind of told kids that through what I was going through, they could overcome it.
 
How do you go from sort of having this message in your heart and this passage to finding your way and recording and hooking up with producer types and other songwriters?  How does it go from this dream to what you're able to do now?

That's God, man. (Laughs.)

Definitely. What inspires you musically. Who do you listen to, who are some of your influences?

Some of my influences are TobyMac, Lecrae, Newsboys, a lot of people, really.  

Have you met Toby?

No, I have not met Toby yet, but he follows me on Twitter.

I bet that had to be a big thrill when you saw he was following you on Twitter.

It was amazing. It was one of the best days of my life.

Do you write all your songs or do you have help? What's that process like?

I write all my own lyrics. My sister, Shelby, co-writes some of my stuff. She'll look over what I write and stuff and fine tune a couple of stuff, but I write most of it.

If you could kind of sum up the dream God's put in your heart, where you kind of see all of this going, what would that be?

Actually I really do not know. I just want to tour around the country or around the world and just helping people find God.
 
What have been some of the biggest challenges for you as a young artist moving forward?

The biggest challenges that I've faced are... hmm... haters. 

Do you face that? 

Oh yeah, everybody has haters.

You were inspired initially by the whole bullying thing. I've watched "Fly Away" and you've got some of these real deep themes. What are some of the themes that are inspiring you right now? What are some topics that you're inspired to write about?

The first one is my fans always tell me how they're going through something and stuff and it kind of makes me write music to help them, and also God. Those two things are just, yeah, just make me inspired.

You said the stories that they tell you inspire you to write.  

Yes.  My friends tell me stories all the time about anything that's going on in their life.  It's really cool.

Are there any that stick out to you that you've heard?

There's this girl named Lisa Young. She's actually in my song "Fly Away." Her mom was beating her and stuff. She sent me a letter, and it was literally making me cry. That letter was so moving. She said [my music and] God helped her overcome it, and that's just like the best feeling you can have.
 
And that she would reach out to you and talk about how your music helped her. That's cool. What's your family life like? Obviously you've got to have a very supportive family to do what you're doing. Talk about that for a second.

My sister works on everything with me, when we're in the studio and everything.  She loves doing this as much as I do. My manager, Frank, he is a youth pastor. It's pretty awesome. It's pretty fun. He's helped me with a lot of life skills and life lessons and just being a better person and my music and performing and everything.

And my mom, she's awesome. She just loves me so much and she just wants to see me do big things and do it for God.

What's getting you excited creatively right now?  Are you writing new stuff?  Where are we at as far as new music goes?

I'm working on a new song right now. It's called "Fighter." It's going to be a really cool song and I hope that it goes well.

How can people be praying for you?

Just pray that my music can help people and touch people and bring them closer to God.