Chicago-based hip-hop artist Sansone has had a rough past, but that doesn’t stop him from shining light through his music. His lyrics emanate the truth of God’s great love and how God was with him—even in his darkest moments.
Sansone found music as a safe haven in the midst of a hectic childhood. He began writing his own lyrics when he was 16 to express how he felt; he hasn’t stopped since.
By age 22, he had lost both of his parents due to illness. Simone realized he needed to find something stable to fulfill him. In his search for that “something,” he discovered God and built a relationship with Him.
Now, Sansone not only writes to share his story and past but also to connect with others. He hopes his music can provide people with a community of hope to get them through the struggle and into the peace of God. I connected with Simone to talk more about his story, his music, as well as lessons from the dreadful 2020.
Please introduce yourself to our readers.
I'm an artist with a dream to write music with intention. To write songs that share stories of my life. To showcase how God has always been a part of my life—even when I didn’t know it.
The beautiful thing about music is the way it connects with people through their circumstances. Part of my dream is to build a community of people who feel just as connected to one another as they do through music. Help build a community of people who see something more than just songs, but a pathway to their respective community.
You talk openly about a tough childhood surrounded by drug abuse, broken relationships, and tragedy. That drove you to music, which led you to God. What do you say to anyone in similar painful situations and environments?
That’s a really hard question, which never has one solid concrete answer. First, I would say that, in making music, talking about what I’ve gone through, I will never know how someone else is feeling about what they're dealing with.
No one circumstance is the same. No one's pain is the same. All I can do is share what I’ve seen, talk about my feelings, and hope it’s enough to show someone all that God can do in their life—even after going through so much.
No matter how much it may seem like we’ve been forgotten, we’re loved, cared for, and known by Him. There are different things I’ve learned that have helped me deal with the stress, and that may work for some people, but it may not for others.
The only thing I could say is, make sure you have a trusted group of people who really love you around you. I promise you'll start seeing how God, amidst everything, has always been there.
Tell us about your third single, “With Me Now.”
"With Me Now" is a single about rallying together. There’s no time where God said we shouldn’t be in community with one another, and that’s really what I’m emphasizing in this song. When God calls us, He doesn’t mean for us to pursue that calling alone. We’re in this together.
I love how you explain songwriting as “writing prescriptions.” This goes much deeper for you than just creating great music.
Even before I was saved, I knew I wanted to make music that would help people. When I was in college, I started having more opportunities to perform, and with that, started to have a platform to speak to people directly with my music.
As I continued writing new songs, I became so invested in writing for the needs of others. And, over time, my songs started feeling less like stories and more like prescriptions. That’s where the idea came from.
I felt my songs needed to have an impact, and if they didn’t, I would be missing the mark. I had put a lot of expectations on myself and felt a lot of pressure from it all.
After some really important conversations with people who were close to me, I felt it was time to take a step back. I took a break from writing for about a year. In ways only God could do, that was the year when I actually had a real encounter with Him and started seeing Him in my life. Shortly thereafter, I decided to get baptized and started living for Him.
Once I made the decision to live for Christ, I started letting God into more and more of my music, allowing Him to do what He wanted to do with it. I needed to prioritize my relationship with Him first over everything else, and then I was able to pursue music in the way I always dreamed of.
I no longer feel the need to write prescriptions with my music, because it was never the music that was bringing the healing. It was God working through it. I just want to share who God is, what He has done in my life, and connect with people through those stories.
2020 was a long year for all of us. What are you taking from this past year into 2021?
The biggest lesson I'm taking with me is patience. As we all can relate looking back, 2020 was an aggressive sign to slow down. To stay home. To have very limited to no contact with people. 2020 forced me to be alone with myself and start really leaning on and inviting the presence of God to meet me right where I was at.
What’s next for you?
There's a lot I'm working on. My team and I have been building toward an EP for this spring called Way Up Above. It’s a project that highlights a lot of my journey over the past year, as well as the different interactions and revelations I’ve experienced with God. Aside from that, I’ve been working on new music.
I’ve been in such a fun and freeing creative headspace the past few months. Writing from that place has taught me so much about myself, brought me closer to God, and helped me write some new music I can’t wait to share.
I don’t know everything about what’s coming next, but what I do know is that the way we're building, some very big things are on the way.
How can we be praying for you?
The biggest prayer I could ask for is to keep learning more about Jesus and learn more about myself. My prayer is that no matter how busy I get, no matter how big this thing gets, my priority in life would be Jesus, and my relationship with Him would always come first.
Without Him, none of who I am, or the music I'm creating, would be possible. My prayer is to always protect that and continue to build the life He has for me—wherever that leads.
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