Steven Malcolm – Redemption City

CCM: What took place with you from age ten to where God had gotten a hold of you?
SM: I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My parents were never married. I was around the age of nine when my mom found out my dad was selling drugs. And she was like, “I don’t want my kids to get taken away from me, so see-ya!”

We moved down to Florida and we would come visit in the summertime and stuff like that. He ends up getting busted, and him being Jamaican, they deported him back to Jamaica. And that was the last time I’ve seen him. I was 10 years old.

Mom was an alcoholic growing up—she struggled with alcohol really bad. She remarried, but her and my step-dad would argue a lot because they both drank—it was like they were so caught up in their relationship that I really just raised myself. So, I never really had a father figure. Mom was struggling with her own vices. Looking up to what’s on the television screen: the ball players, the rappers… That’s why I claim I come from the hip hop culture—that’s just how I was raised.

I had big brothers who took me under their wing and considered me “the talented young cat that’s gonna make it out.” So, I had people I looked up to saying, “Steven, don’t get involved with the drugs. Don’t get involved with the gang stuff. Just keep playing ball. You’re gonna make it out. You’re talented.” So, that’s what I did.

It was my freshmen year of college in 2010 and mom had moved. My sister was stripping. Dad was not present. Me and my best friend fell out. And all I was doing, literally, was going to school and trying to pursue basketball. But I was failing in my classes, so I couldn’t play. I just began to be really empty. I stopped going to my house because my sister was involved in a lot of crazy stuff that I didn’t really want to be a part of. So, I was living in this house with a bunch of my big homies. We had a studio in the basement, so all we would do is party, play video games, and rap in the basement.

I began to look at my life as an eighteen, nineteen year-old who’s in college, trying to pursue a dream that’s not really working out, jobless, broke… Wearing the same clothes every day. I remember wearing the same red t-shirt my senior year in high school. So, I looked in the mirror and was like, “Who am I?” All this time in my life I’m working up to trying to become this basketball star, trying to get all these girls, getting rich and stuff. And it just felt like all my life I had been chasing the wind. It was hard. I felt stuck. I felt alone. I felt empty. Dad wasn’t around, mom’s not around, what and who am I living up to? What am I doing? That’s when God stepped in.

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