EP 455: Spoken Word Artist Brandon Leake - Season 15 Winner of America's Got Talent New Single "I've Got"

Yeah, it's definitely a form of songwriting.

So for you, and well, definitely congratulations on I've Got, the new single, and the title itself feels simple, but it's incredibly profound.

What was the personal moment or life experience that inspired you to write this piece?

I was going through a really difficult time.

I was, uh, I was going through a lot, uh, health-wise with my daughter.

I was going through a lot financially.

I was going through a lot spiritually.

And I remember going to church, and my pastor was doing a sermon series on joy, and I was like, "Man, I don't really have a lot of joy in this time." And the challenge that the pastor gave me was, "Joy is not a circumstantial thing.

Joy is in all seasons." And so I was like, "Man, if that's true, then let me write from joy hoping that it'll come meet me." And so I wrote my verse on I've Got from that perspective.

And so, "Though I may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, my God's the only one I look towards right now," were the first lyrics because that's exactly what I felt.

You know, [clears throat] I think w- you know, f- as believers, I think we struggle with the joy of the Lord is our strength.

And like you said, many times we're like, we treat joy as an emotion and not really that it's the essence that Christ wants us to have.

Exactly.

It's a, it's something in which we carry inside of us like it's a... [clicks tongue] The same way the Holy Spirit abides in us when we abide in Christ, joy gets the chance to abide in us, and we get the chance to carry it into every circumstance we have.

And joy gets the chance to be a lens in which we look at the world.

Because though I may be dealing with what I've dealt with, there's always circumstances in which I can be like, "Man, but this has worked in my favor," "But God has worked this for my good," "But these things may be wrong, but God is still good even in the midst of my distress." So it's been beautiful to be able to utilize my art to highlight that because I think our world oftentimes only allows for us to look at the negatives as negatives and not to be able to see them as a space where God can be still doing work.

Yeah.

[clears throat] You said it, because even in James it says, "Count it all joy." And when trials come, it's not that God's being mean to us.

He's wanting us to trust Him to become stronger through the trial.

And, uh, you know, it's kind of like, uh, you know, you walk through the shadow of the valley of death.

It's just the shadow, but God's gonna bring us through it.

And, you know, I always kind of go back to the scr- b- back to the scripture in Numbers 6 where, you know, He will shine His face upon you, and that's the light I want.

And so even when we all go through trials in life, we have to realize this too shall pass.

Yeah.

I think about Jesus on the cross.