Through a life full of hard knocks and various hurdles to overcome, Trant has always loved hip hop.
Now he is following that passion and releasing his first compilation EP A Ram in the Bush, taking on a role that is hard to find in Christian hip hop.
Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, Trant did not attend church regularly because his family did not have a steady mode of transportation. But this did not stop his mother from creating church at home by playing gospel music and sharing scripture with her boys. These efforts to be a godly influence on her children deeply moved Trant and taught him to rely on God for all things.
“We didn’t have much growing up,” Trant said. “When there wasn’t food on the table, she did what she had to do — call, borrow money, you know, and she said, ‘Don’t worry ’bout it, God will provide.’”
His mother’s faith touched Trant and motivated him to attend church regularly once he grew up and was able to drive. He officially accepted Christ and was baptized in 1998.
Despite this decision early on in his life, he ran into trouble in his high school years.
“I was basically just going from different girl to different girl,” Trant said. “My dad wasn’t really around, so I didn’t know how to treat a woman.”
He would commonly cut class in order to chase girls, which led to him failing almost all of his classes at one point. Graduation seemed impossible, especially since his two older brothers had failed to graduate as well.
But Trant eventually put himself on the right track and graduated on time in 2001. This is something that he attributes fully to the prayers and love he got from his grandmother.
“My grandma, when I was so far behind said, ‘I would love for you to graduate,’” said Trant. “She said, ‘I know your heart. You have a big heart. I love you and God loves you, and you need to graduate and break the mold.’”
Trant’s introduction to the music industry came in 2003 when he and a friend started Bug Out Entertainment, a secular record label. The label had big potential, and at one point it was negotiating a deal with Atlantic Records, Trant said. However, a representative from Atlantic was not pleased with the turnout for a show put on by a group under Trant’s label and backed out of the deal.
“I kind of felt like I was a failure,” Trant said. “I just stepped away from it and kept listening to music, kept buying beats and things like that because that’s what I do. I love hip hop.”
It wasn’t until 2012 that Trant started attending church again. He began to host Bible study groups in his house and soon came to realize the effect that the kind of music he was listening to was having on his spiritual life.
“It’s kind of like, if you keep eating the wrong kind of food, it’s going to be bad for your health,” Trant said. “How can I have a Bible study at my home, invite people over, when I’m going out listening to this that makes me want to do this?”
Trant was moved by a Facebook post he read detailing the story of a man who threw away all of his secular music. He made a decision to stop listening to his old music and watched as he gave up so much of something he loved. This is when a friend of his introduced him to Lecrae.
“Like a lot of people out there still, when you hear ‘Christian Rap,’ you’re thinking, ‘OK that sounds whack,’” Trant said. “I listened to it, and I was like ‘Man, Lecrae is pretty nice.’”
Through watching videos on YouTube and browsing Rapzilla, Trant was introduced to other artists, and soon developed a love for the genre.
Once, after watching a video of DJ Khaled collaborating with another artist, Trant had the idea of bringing together different talent in the Christian hip-hop subgenre. It was with this idea that he eventually formed B.I.G. F.I.S.H. Muzik (Believers in God faithful in serving Him), whose ultimate purpose is to serve and help those in need.
“We feed the homeless and things like that, and now were serving with the music,” Trant said. “We just trying to reach the youth and get them to turn to Christ.”
A Ram in the Bush, which was released on March 31, is the first project under B.I.G. F.I.S.H. Muzik. For all tracks, Trant came up with an idea and topic for the song and how he wanted the beat to sound, then contacted artists and a producer who he felt would best fit his overall idea for that track. He did not rap, sing or produce on the EP.
“I’m just trying to play the background and stay out of the spotlight,” Trant said.
A look at the tracklisting for the album reveals an impressive list of features, especially for a debut project. These include artists such as Dee-1, Braille and Dre Murray to name a few. The process of landing these features was a mix of luck, timing and what Trant feels was the hand of God.
“God provided,” Trant said. “I mean, I was shocked myself.”
Trant had a friend who went to school with Christon Gray, and this friend was able to connect him to his Gray’s brother, Taelor, who taught him a lot about the industry, aided his vision and provided connections for different artists. Trant then reached out to Yaves, a featured artist on the project, via Facebook, and he also gave him some connections to different artists.
“He seemed like he was very passionate about his music,” Yaves said. “When I saw that he was willing to do things in excellence, he was willing to go the extra mile to invest in himself, for his ministry, that’s what made me more open to help him out.”
Just like Trant, Yaves was very impressed with the wide range of talent Trant was able to pull in for the project.
“You’ve got people that you really don’t see together on a project, and I think that’s rare in this genre,” Yaves said. In some cases, Trant would reach out to artists via their booking pages and such, but mostly it was just artists connecting him to other artists. According to Huggy, a featured artist on the opening track “Good Noize” as well as one of Trant’s good friends, Trant brings great people skills and a persistent attitude necessary to get all of these artists to collaborate effectively.
“He has the gift of gab, man, to make the connections with people,” Huggy said. “He has a drive, and I think when his mind gets stuck on something he goes for it.”
In the same sense that God provided Trant with those connections to the artists, following his mother’s example of fully relying on God, Trant got the title for the project out of a circumstance in which God delivered in a time of financial need.
In the midst of putting together the EP, Trant had multiple bills due. He was behind on his electricity bill and had received notice that his electricity would soon be shut off.
That day in the mail, he received a rebate for some tires he had recently purchased that just covered the amount he needed to keep the lights on.
“I told my mom and she said, ‘God keeps a ram in the bush. I always told you that,’” Trant said. “And that’s where the title actually came from.”
The one thing Trant wants listeners to take away from this project is that God will always provide, whatever the circumstances. His mother told him that since he was a child, and now it is his turn to tell the world.
