Having grown up loving the rap and hip-hop he heard around the house, Christian Pearson isn’t unfamiliar with the drugs, gangs, and violence that made the music so notorious. He’s working to make sure he can hit it big in the music industry himself, but with a twist — his lyrics send a positive, drug-free, anti-gang, profanity-free message.
C Rush, as he goes by on his MySpace Music page, is also 15 years old — a freshman at Bishop Garcia Diego High School, and a former member of the Boys and Girls Club where he got his start in music through the Notes for Notes program. He’s been recording songs since age 12, and is working on a demo of his best works. He keeps his lyrics in a “rhyme book,” where he talks about his dreams of making it big and his experiences with friends who “just got lost in the gangs and the drugs.”
Last fall, Christian got his first taste of fame when his song “Crushing Drugs” was one of only a handful of honorees in a national rap competition organized by NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and sponsored by the Grammy Foundation. The song told the story of a teen boy and girl who lost their friends by getting involved with illicit substances.
Since then, he’s played at a Notes for Notes fundraiser at SOhO where he performed “Crushing Drugs” in front of a full house. That was his first time performing as C Rush onstage, he said with a grin; he’s already eagerly anticipating another Notes for Notes performance in the next few months.
Christian remains unswayed in his desire to stay away from the bad stuff. His mother, Leanna Pearson, said she knew eliminating so-called “gangster rap” with negative messages from their household wasn’t the way to encourage Christian and his 11-year-old brother, Brilee, to stay away from gangs and drugs. Throughout Christian’s young life, she and her husband have made a point of discussing how those issues are addressed in music.
But it was Christian’s own musical motivation and talent that drove him to take his music to the next level. Leanna says she’ll support her son through all of the challenges of pursuing a music career, but that she’s thankful he’s sending a message that’s important for kids, teens, and adults alike. As he writes in one of his songs, “I’m the kid that you’ve all been waiting for.”
Christian’s music can be heard on his MySpace Music page here.