SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE: MUSIC U CAN LIVE 2

By Dennis Moore

March 1, 2009 (San Diego's East County) — Just like Hip Hop artist "R" Kelly did in my hometown of Chicago, East County Gospel singer Nicolas SK Shivers seems to be taking a similar path to stardom and fame, by initially selling and promoting his music on the streets of San Diego. I ran into Nicolas "SK" Shivers at the Mission Valley Mall while I was shopping for computer and office equipment for a consulting business that I am starting in San Diego.

Just like so many other street vendors, SK came up to me in the Mission Valley Shopping Center Mall and aed me if I could make a contribution towards his music CD, a dollar or more? As I didn't even have that on me at the time, I asked SK if he could meet me for lunch the next day, and I would be happy to purchase his CD. I guess I admired his entrepreneurial spirit! We met the next day at the Panda Express Restaurant at Horton Plaza, and after talking with SK about his wife and kids, and the role that they played in his music, I purchased two of his CDs for $10.00 and told him that I wanted to help promote him. I was impressed with his love of the Lord, and that of his family.

Realizing that the House of Blues in downtown San Diego has a weekly Gospel Sunday Brunch, I talked with SK about possibly getting him to perform there.  I've started a promotion and consulting business in San Diego and am already working with a friend, Andrea Sharp, who sings ballads, and a nationally known jazz singer friend in Chicago, Dee Alexander, who has expressed interest in being booked in the House of Blues here.  I see potential in SK and his music, so I hoped to have SK and Andrea factored into the concert for my friend from Chicago.

What impressed me most of all about this young Gospel artist and entrepreneur from East County, is how he has incorporated his wife and kids into what he is espousing. Proverbs, chapter 22, verse 6, says; "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." If ever a picture is worth a thousand words, one only need to look at photos of Nicolas SK Shivers with his wife and kids to see what their Gospel music is doing for them. There is an old expression: A family that prays together, stays together.

Sure, it is RAP and Hip Hop music that really sells, and that has captured the ear of the majority of our youth.  But SK believes that our youth should have alternatives to what is espoused through those mediums, and he is banking on it through his family to get that point across. SK and his wife, April,  told me that they performed their music and Gospel act at last year's "Kuumba Fest" in San Diego, but they were not that well received, for those attending primarily came to hear RAP and/or Hip Hop.

There is no question that there are many negative connotations associated with RAP and Hip Hop, some of it misogynistic, and it has possibly contributed to the influences upon our youth. I have experienced that with my own kids. I recall attempting to introduce my daughter to the positive influences of church and the Christian centered music emanating from it at my former church in Chicago, through a program called "The Peace Cafe. That, to a large extent, is what gravitated me towards SK and what he is attempting to do with his family, and through his music.

President Barack Obama gave a Father's Day speech at my former church in Chicago, the same one where my daughter Brandy got baptized and where she participated in the Peace Cafe, and he expounded on the virtues of positive influences in our kids' lives. 

When I initially met SK and purchased his CDs, he gave me the attached Thank You letter, that he gives to those expressing an interest in his music. The attached Thank You letter speaks volumes about his music, his love of the Lord, and his family! I feel blessed to be associated with him and his family, and I am predicting stardom for this East County resident. 

Dennis Moore is a writer and author from Chicago, a member of the San Diego Writers/Editors Guild, and an entrepreneur with a promotion and consulting business,Contracts & Agency, LLC. He can be contacted at demoore21@sprint.blackberry.net.