I don't call myself a Christian. I don't call myself a Catholic. I don't call myself anything.
I just say I believe in God. I'm not a Christian rapper. I'm not a mainstream rapper. I'm not
a YouTube rapper. I'm not an underground rapper. I'm not a green or a blue rapper. I'm an artist.
One day I'm going to rap about how I'm the best. The next day I might rap about my belief
with God. The next day I might rap about how I love this girl. The next day I might rap
about how my shoes are blue. I might rap about how I'm in black forces, but I'm not about
to do no bad shit. Dax is whatever he wants to be. It's Dax!
So the idea for dear God was actually like three years ago when I started writing poetry.
But when I started it never... It didn't seem like it was ever going to be a song. I used
to write dear, dear school, dear God. And then dear alcohol, I have all these different
poems. So dear God was one, but there was just never a beat to it. There's a guy named
Encore Beats, and he's the one that got the beat from, it was on YouTube. It was like
a MF slash G-Eazy beat or something like that. And it, and I played it in the car and as
soon as it started, I said, dear God. And I was like, wow. So this poem that I'd finally
had for three years was finally fit to a beat. So it was dope.
I was thinking, so I grew up in church. I was an altar boy, I was in the choir. Then
I went to a private Catholic Christian school when I went prep school for basketball. And
then I ended up finishing at a private Catholic school at my D2 when I transferred from D1.
So it was just like, I've been in so many Bible classes, I've been in front of so many
pastors. It's like, yo, I'm tired of just hearing it from people. Not disrespectful,
I'm just... I'd rather just talk to you about it my G. Doesn't, my G come from God is it,
I think that's what, is that play off of that or not?
I've always felt like the world is just playing one big game of telephone. You think about
humans. We've been here for so many years, so messages are getting passed through different
generations and through different people, through different countries with different
heights, races, all these things, climates, so everyone is going to create their own version
of what I guess the original message is, which is what we're all still somewhat confused
about in the first place. So I think that's why there's multiple religions, it's a big
game of telephone.
So your parents tell you to pray every night, pray every night, pray every night, you know
what I mean? And they ain't saying, talk to God, talk to God. So there came a point in
my life where I was praying every night, I was young. But then my mom would be like,
if you keep praying, you'll talk to him. You know what I mean? So some nights I would go
to my room, in the dark and I'm like okay tonight, I'm really going to concentrate.
I'm really going to get in my feelings and I'm really going to pray super hard and maybe
he'll talk to me. But as you get older you're just like, okay, you're not going to hear
the actual words from actual God.
I remember being a kid, right? Growing up in schools. I remember I moved from the inner
city of Ottawa, Canada to the suburbs and obviously God is everywhere in the schools
and all these things and you see this picture of a white God. And obviously growing up I
don't care. I'm like "dope." But then you get older, right? And all of a sudden one
day someone's like, "yo, you know they're lying, right? God was black, bro." They were
back at that time in the sun and there's no way his skin could have been blah blah blah.
So then I'm like, "okay bet, let me go Google this." And as soon as you go to Google, what
do you put in? Is God black? And thousands of things come up and I'm talking about, people
write books on this. At the end of the day, I really don't care whether God is black or
white, but I would like to know.
When I was younger, they always used to say, "Okay, this is the time where we're going
to go do confessional.” You confess your sins and you'd walk into the little booth
and the pastor would be on the other side. I just remember getting to 13 or 14 and just
being like, "Nah, that's not for me. I can't even see dude on the other side". And I just
don't like the whole feel of, "who is this guy?" So I stopped doing that. So that was
when I just started confessing, not confessing, but just being like, "Oh, God, forgive me
for this", and I'll just do it through a prayer.
If humans create a religion or you create a religion or whatever it is, how do I know
the motives of the people who created it. What were really their motives and now it
was all the way back then, so have the motives changed. And if we're innately sinners, how
can I know that they're trying to do it for the right reason, which is why I said I don't
need religion. I need spirituality. So maybe I got to cut these people out who are innately
sinners and just have a connection with you.
So what inspired that was actually crazy. I think my mom called me, maybe, I think it
was two years ago, when she told me that one of the people in our church had gotten taken
away. One of the churches I was in growing up. They had found out that the dude was doing
stuff in his past church and then he had came to our church, as deacon or something like
that. And then eventually they ended up just coming and he wasn't allowed to work there
anymore. Obviously there's been a lot of things about pastors and stuff like that, but that
line came from that call from my mom that day.
So in the song I said, "Bring back King, bring back X". When I was personally talking about
it, I was talking about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. But I knew also that a
bunch of people we're going to attribute it to XXXtentacion and I was fine with that because
I know he's also impacted a lot of people in a positive way too. You can take it however
you want. That's why it's just X. Know what I mean? So I was fine with people taking it
either way too. It's really subjective in how you want to feel.
I started the song by saying I was a believer and I ended the song by saying amen because
I thought it would just be so powerful that after three minutes or whatever it is of just
asking questions to God and sort of people really thinking "Wow, is he not a believer?".
People not really knowing that you end it all by saying amen. Basically cementing that
even though I do have all these questions and I do have all this like doubt at some
times that I still believe.
A lot of people will meet me and be like, "wow, you don't talk like you rap." I'm like,
"yeah, I'm rapping". It's just different. I'm not screaming, shouting all day, I'm chilling,
relaxing. They want me to scream and I'll just be like, "bro, that's not the vibe right
now, man."