Do For One
Several months after Ruslan toured and released music videos for Carry On, he brought up the talk with his pastors to Beleaf, who recommended that Ruslan take a year off of his own music. Ruslan did.
“Up until that point, it was always, ‘Ruslan frontman, Ruslan frontman,’” Givez said, “and he took a backseat and put other people before him.”
Ruslan shifted all of his attention to Givez’s retail debut 4 Seasons.
The Kings Dream founder did all of the behind-the-scenes work — helping to find production, mix and master and get CDs manufactured. He also created a release strategy around the album, which included a party that Social Club and JGivens opened up.
“What he did was just create a platform that I didn’t know was possible to have,” Givez said. “It was the first time I had seen like maybe 500 people in a room, and I was headlining. My homies that came from my city got to see that somebody can really do something, so for that, I’m forever grateful to him because all I ever wanted to do was be an inspiration.”
4 Seasons drew rave reviews and a respect for Givez’s craft in Christian hip hop that once only Ruslan possessed.
“Ruslan just believes in people,” Beleaf said. “He’s the first guy, besides John’s home, who was like, ‘Yo, I want to sign John Givez. This kid is amazing.’ Everybody was hating on John. No one liked him as an artist. ‘Aw, he can’t sing. His raps are kind of … whatever,’ to now he’s like the most desired artist on anybody’s track.”
Next came Beleaf’s turn, and Ruslan took the same all-in approach with his retail debut, Red Pills + Black Sugar. Ruslan asked fans to leave Beleaf encouraging voicemails about finishing the project, and the messages turned into the transitions between songs on Kings Dream’s free album, Dream Junkies, in April 2014.
Beleaf needed that type of support, he said, and the effort Ruslan gave to make Red Pills + Black Sugar a success re-strengthened their relationship.
“I got to see how much he loved me,” Beleaf said, “how much he wanted me to succeed, how much he wanted me to feed my family off of music, how much he was pushing me.”
In the year that Ruslan shelved his solo career, his teammates blossomed into two of the most respected emcees in Christian hip hop. He isn’t the undisputed frontman of Kings Dream anymore, but no longer is his personal platform a priority.
“I knew if I could push those guys out there — make them ‘bigger’ than me — that’s just as much of a victory,” Ruslan said.
When it finally came time for Ruslan to record again, Beleaf and Givez offered their overwhelming support. Not only did they desire to give back because of Ruslan’s contribution to their albums, but they couldn’t possibly have bought in more to the Do For One concept.
“The funny thing about the concept of Do For One is that [Ruslan] is exactly that guy,” Beleaf said. “If it wasn’t for Ruslan, I never would’ve picked up turntables. I never would’ve started rapping. … That was the coolest thing, seeing that people believed in me to just do something great. I never wrote a rap or recorded a rap before I met Ruslan — same thing with John.”
Do For One tells the story of an artist whose ambition for broad-scale impact developed solely into a desire for success. The clear moral of this album’s story is that purpose and identity is found alone in Jesus and the best way to change the world is with local ministry.
Ruslan traded the pursuit of broad-scale impact for local ministry, and the example that he set on his album is expected to make his pastors proud.
“I believe that [Do For One] is going to do a lot of people good,” Beleaf said. “It’s not always the Andy Mineos, the Lecraes, the Kendrick Lamars who are the most influential. It’s the people who inspire those people. Those are the people who I feel like are the most valuable because they can motivate the star to be a star. Do For One — he motivates stars to shine in this record.”
Buy Do For One on iTunes or Amazon. Listen to Ruslan’s single “If There Was No God” here.
