THE EARLY YEARS
Exodus de Alexandria started in 1989 recording his first Hip Hop tape of youthful rhymes with jazz beats on a Karaoke machine. Inspired by various styles of music at such a young age, such as: Rock, Hip Hop, Jazz, and Metal, the years of music classes and admiring one of his older brother’s musical gifts helped him grasp his love for music, overall.
From 1989-1992, playing piano by ear and having such a huge desire to create music, drove Exodus towards putting together home recordings to share with local kids who were just as fascinated with the recording process as he was. This gave Exodus an early glimpse of how music can connect people and change the hearts of many. With nothing more than a condensor microphone attached to a small radio, a grand piano, blank tapes, lyrics, tin cans and table tops for beats...along with a vision of something greater, Exodus began creating his own tracks from scrap.
Towards the Fall of 1992, a move back to Virginia and the detachment from being an Army brat led Exodus in the direction of untangling the naturally confusing beat construction of a keyboard. The fascination of vocal layering, overdubbing, arrangement and music production continued pressing him towards unlocking the mysteries of music-making. And it did! Not long after, a small Casio keyboard was purchased by his father to begin what would be a long journey in music composition.
THE GROWING PAINS
As the years progressed, more equipment slowly gathered and enabled him to truly pursue his lyrical gifts through Hip Hop, as well as developing what would be a natural music production gift without the use of sampling or borrowing from other tracks. The belief was: "It is always good to respect other artists’ work, but it is a tragedy to use their work as your own". From 1992-1995, Exodus remained in Virginia, now fully engulfed in public education and more connected to what the streets were feeling. Hip Hop took over and drove him to write even more rhymes, begin snapping photos of himself, and photocopying them into audio cassette j-cards at the nearby library. His first visit to a professional studio was in 1994 with a local R&B group he was working with at the age of 14. When the studio engineer assisted him in sequencing the tracks, he said: "Dang, for your age you have such an awesome mastering of music production". In the meantime, personal demo after another were made in his bedroom to a soon growing number of students who would list him as the only kid in that area/school who produced, wrote and distributed/sold his own demo.
In spite of all of this personal growth as an artist and producer, the music industry wasn’t ever out of reach for Exodus, according to his beliefs. So, he would prepare typed letters addressed to various record labels of artists he respected and listened to. It was to his amazement that Queen Latifah wrote back respecting him merely as a fan. That alone was enough encouragement to realize that they are not out of his reach. As he began mastering a more advanced keyboard in 1994, his father made another investment into his son’s gifts, and helped him get more recording equipment to put forth even better material.
BRAND NEW HEAVY
In January of 1995, Exodus left VA for Prairie View, TX to reside on a college campus in which his father would soon become president. Leaving behind a support group, friends and a community that was home, a new beginning arose out of the recent move. Exodus readjusted himself to the slow, quiet, and outskirted area, yet meeting some of the most intriguing individuals of his life. By this time, Hip Hop music was definitely spinning back into West Coast Gangster Rap and the music was much more melodic. Some of his major influences were: Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, DJ Quik, Snoop Dogg, Jodeci, Wu-Tang, DJ Premier, Biggie Smalls, Nas, Jay-Z, Foxy, and many more. Fully caught up in the Hip Hop/R&B movement that was conquering the Billboard and dominating the music industry during that era, Exodus’ music grew more intense, personal, and heartfelt.
As his reputation spread throughout this small town and region, so did the numbers of local talent flooding into his parents’ house to record music in a spacious bedroom that not long before used to be a small corridor of a bedroom back in Virginia. Much had changed, however, so many things remained, which was his passion and drive to make music. Still living in the world, the amount of individuals scheduling studio time with a young 15 year old kid was enormous. As the equipment soon revolved and changed, so did his own signature sound enhance. Releasing demo after demo to the locals, working with college students who were eager to get their music recorded, and even connecting with much older artists from Houston that lived over 50 miles away, sparked a fire within Exodus that took his skills to higher levels.
Not long after, his pre-production studio became a storehouse for so many local artists who didn’t want to deal with the politics of working with record labels, company owners, loansharks and bootleggers. Always storing away private studio session mixdowns and records maintained the integrity of Exodus’ artists as well as himself. By the age of 16, Exodus began calling up record labels, doing photography for all of his artists and fitting for the tape covers, constructing biographies of these artists, and packaging their material for review by various major labels. All of this led to the near music production/songwriting deal by Atlantic Records in 1997. However, strict parents can often surprise you during the most opportunistic events! After having a one-on-one meet and greet with DJ Premier, while visiting relatives in Texas, he opened Exodus’ eyes towards the gruesome realities that come with trying to survive in NY and still make it in the music business.
EVERYONE GETS HUMBLED AT SOMETIME....
In September of 1996, Tupac Shakur died of fatal gunshot wounds that ended his unbelievable yet brief career. This had such an impact on Exodus, that, the desire to even record music that glorified death and violence seemed tasteless and outright immoral. Personal issues began to develop in his life, and the music began to seem boring and uneventful. As depression began settling in, the desire to work with artists began to slowly decrease and the personal issues grew heavier, Exodus began to increase his drinking, smoking and self-destructive behavior. On a clear Sunday morning in the Summer of 1997, following a night of extreme binge drinking with some of his recording buddies, Exodus returned from mass "still intoxicated" from the early morning and lost in the haze of confusion. After showering and relaxing, a near-death experience occured which literally paralyzed Ex to the bathroom floor and almost stopped his heart.
It was then that with alcohol poisoning soon being the cause of a young man’s death, the foolish behavior, the wrong influences, the depression, the personal issues at home, and many more areas of gray in his life...he called out to God Almighty to save him from the stronghold of death, tugging him away forever. In that instance, all of the poisonous liquor trapped within his body was released by the Almighty Hands of God, and Ex was able to rise up again and live another day. From that moment on, he never touched alcohol to that degree again, nor did he smoke or continue to record at the same pace as his other lyrical comrades.
.....THEN GOD SPOKE OUT OF THE SHADOWS
From 1997-1999, Exodus was slowly going through the motions of being tugged in two different directions, one from the world with all of its lies, schemes, traps, and troubles...and..the other which was the Lord who so patiently and graciously spared Exodus’ life long before he ever needed being spared. God destined for Exodus to survive the madness of the world and somehow make negative situations turn out to be positive ones. It then came to the actual "calling" from the Lord Jesus as to which "god" or "God" he would serve.
THE EPIPHANY
And in the year 2000, Ex gave his life and his heart to Jesus Christ, his Savior. Along with that decision came ridicule from those he felt "supposedly" respected him, from so-called "friends" who mocked and scorned him for the major decision made in life, and from the Wicked One who took it personal when Ex came to Christ Jesus. From that moment on, he became an enemy and target to Satan. Nevertheless, God in all of his goodness, blessed Exodus de Alexandria with the gift to sing for Him and also continue to rhyme in His Name. This was something that was never truly in existence throughout the long journey of Ex growing into the man of God he continues to strive to be in life. Since the year 2000, he has been making Inspirational Soul and Rap music while remaining Christian-based.
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