Jericho: From living in a Walmart parking lot to being a Rapzilla Freshman

Just a few years ago, Nashville-based artist Jericho, a member of the 2015 Rapzilla Freshman class formerly signed to Dream/Capitol, called a Walmart parking lot home.

“I got this van ’cause after I got saved, I said, ‘Okay God, I know you’re going to have me on the road sometime.’ And I got this touring van,” Jericho said, “and I slept in a Walmart parking lot for three and a half months, and just said, ‘God, when you’re ready, I’m ready.'”

Those three and a half months were longer than Jericho would’ve preferred to have Walmart as his backyard.

“I’d love to tell you that God sat down and broke manna with me, but I was angry and mad,” Jericho said. “It was a nice van; it was a conversion van, so it had the fold-up bed in the back, and I would lay in the back of the bed and just kick the side of the van as hard as I could, just mad at everything.”

Jericho’s attitude changed, though, after a call from his mother.

“She calls me, and I’m like hysterical,” Jericho said. “She’s like, ‘What’s going on?’ I’m like, ‘All these Christian people said they would help me when I got saved. Everybody’s hypocrites. I was living in sin, had an apartment, doing videos, and now I’m a Christian and I’m homeless.’ I felt like Chris Farley living in a van.

“So I’m wanting sympathy from her, and she said, ‘Shut up.'”

Jericho’s mother told him to be thankful for the place he had to sleep and the food he had to eat.

“There’s people who would die for what you have tonight,” Jericho said, quoting her. “So I hang up and drank my Juicy Juice, and after that, I just came back to the van after work, and I would just thank God for everything. I’d say, ‘God, I know you got a purpose for my life. I don’t know what it is. I think it will be doing music, and I’m just ready whenever you are.”

In 2014, Jericho signed with Dream/Capitol and released his debut album, Road 2 Redemption. He’s no longer under the label, but the lessons he learned in that Walmart parking lot remain.

Watch his three-part interview below.

WATCH MORE: Jericho – Fly Away ft. Danny Boone

David Daniels
David Daniels
David Daniels is a columnist at Rapzilla.com and the managing editor of LegacyDisciple.org. He has been published at Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, CCM Magazine, Bleacher Report, The Washington Times and HipHopDX.
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