Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Byrd.
Hi Eric, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia in the 80’s. I have always been in love with Atlanta. I was born at Crawford Long Hospital and my early years were on the Westside of Atlanta off of MLK Drive. I attended Atlanta public schools and the city was always the backdrop to our scenery. I had a passion for making art and listening to music, especially from Atlanta. Growing up, I listened to all types of music from all over the world, but locally I fell in love with Outkast and Goodie Mob. Atlanta has a rich music history, and it was ‘cool’ because I have memories of seeing so many music artist in my neighborhoods and even attended school with some of them before they were famous. Whether at the mall’s like Greenbriar, South Dekalb Mall, or being at the Underground, you could see anybody from TLC, Jermaine Dupri, Kriss Kross or Andre 3000. That’s the Atlanta I grew up in. My earliest memories are being down-town seeing the iconic CNN building, TBS, the Omni, and even watching the Falcons and Braves play in Fulton County Stadium, before there was a Georgia Dome. I remember being so proud when it was announced that we would host the Olympics. My dad, (Michael Byrd) drove Marta Buses so it was nothing for me as a young child to catch a bus and train and go down town by myself just to take in the sights. I always felt safe, even being alone as a little kid because Atlanta has always been home to me. I was a child like any other child but I always took pride in my city. I’ve always been a homer. My favorite teams growing up were, the Atlanta Braves, The Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Falcons. I still remember having an Atlanta Knights hockey jersey before we had the Atlanta Thrashers Hockey team. That was me, as early as I can remember, I was into sports! Atlanta Sports! Even during a time when Magic, Jordan, Barkley and Shaq were dominating the league, my favorite players were from the home team. I loved Kevin Willis, Dominique Wilkins, Mookie Blaylock, Stacy Augmon, and Steve Smith. My favorite Falcons players were Andre Rison, Jesse Tuggle, and especially “Prime Time” Deion Sanders. I wore ripped jeans because of him! I got my early swag from him! I remember watching games screaming with my dad as Deion Sanders made plays. My granddad helped me love baseball too. I loved the Braves pitchers Glavine, Maddux, Avery, and Smoltz. Grissom, Sanders, Justice, Mcgriff, and Chipper Jones are names I heard all of the time. I could go on and on. My grandparents worked at the stadiums sometimes so I would get a chance to watch the games and cheer for my favorite players. Sports were an escape for me. They helped me escape from the reality of some of the bad things that were happening around me. It was like a shield, which is a common theme for my life. When you grow up in the city you learn so many lessons just by observation. You learn to be a shield. You learn to be hard. You learn to use the shield to deflect and to engage when necessary. You may ask, “Why the need to be hard?” Well, in the city you tend to see more crime, more betrayal, more drug activity, more trash, and even more pollution. You hear constant sirens in the distance. Witnessing arguments, disagreements, fights and even death is a normal occurrence. You see graffiti all over the place. You learn the “bad words” from reading what was tagged on the walls or the ground. You encounter the homeless more often. It’s completely different from the suburbs. It can seem like a mess, and on a daily basis you get constant invitations to become apart of the mess. For a young man like I was, in the city, you have to learn quickly to shield yourself so you don’t get consumed by the mess. However, the problem with that shield for me was that I used it block EVERYTHING. I didn’t allow the bad to come in but I also did not allow the good to come in. There is some beauty, even in the mess. There are great people, beautiful architecture, rich history, rich music and culture. The graffiti is not just a mess, it’s misplaced art. I couldn’t see that. I became only one attribute of the shield, HARD. I was closed off emotionally and I didn’t express myself much. My shield was doing it’s job. It was full of bumps and bruises from deflecting and protecting me. I was a survivor but I was not living and I was not free. There is a difference! I remember while my mom had a stint in prison she called and introduced me and my older sister (Chameka) to God. She said i want you to start praying. She may as well had been speaking Chinese. What was prayer? I had no idea what she was talking about. I had never considered the concept of there being a God, let alone me talking to Him. She began to teach us from jail . She taught us about Jesus Christ. I remember not understanding any of it. I prayed but I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t necessarily believe. I would often test God and say things like, “God if you are real, then make me float.” God never made me float or answered my misguided demands, so I kind of struggled with belief about God, into my teenage years. My mom (Jackie Byrd) always took us to church but I would always feel like an outsider looking in. I saw people dancing, speaking in tongues and having a good time in God. I saw so much joy and I wanted to feel it but never could. I abandoned church for some time. In a way, I became an atheist. The change that God made in my older sister’s life made me feel that God had to be real, because I knew she wouldn’t fake it, but I struggled with belief because I could not speak in tongues, and dance, and feel that joy that everyone else seemed to feel. I learned later in life, that it wasn’t God’s fault. It was me that was separating me from God. It was the shield. I had never noticed it before! My own defense mechanisms, that I set up to protect me, were the same defenses that was keeping God from coming fully into my life. It took my grandfather and my uncle dying months apart to break down my defenses. I cried that year for the first time in years. I realized that I had built a shield to keep as much tragedy as possible from getting into my heart, but I also was not allowing a loving God to come into my heart to heal the damage that was already there. I read Psalm 34:15 that says Gods ears are open to our cry. I realized that vulnerability was necessary for a real relationship with God. I had to lower my shield to let God in. I started reading the Bible and it began to work on my heart and show me that there were areas in my life that I was resisting God even though I felt like I wanted us to have a relationship. As a teenager I began to change and I joined my first church. I still had questions and belief issues but I was on the path. At 21 years old when I was close to signing a million dollar music contract God showed me in an actual vision that He truly is real and that I was on the wrong path with my career. I finally got my answer! God is real! I did not continue to pursue secular music. I gave my life fully to God. I helped some of the young people at church make gospel rap music for years. I spent years in prayer, in the Word of God and serving my local church, at the time, The Harvest Tabernacle Church. I served on and eventually became the director of the media ministry, where I was still able to use my passion for art and music. Over the years I was able to serve humanity in different ways. I worked with the parking ministry, youth ministry, the men’s ministry, and the marriage ministry. I was ordained a minister and affirmed as a Prophet. I served there for 17 years and now I am the pastor at New Jerusalem the City Church. I learned that God has not called me to carry a shield and block out the world but to embody a shield; not to just be hard and calloused and not just to deflect, but also to protect. This is what I teach other men now. We are called to be shields. It’s an acronym that we use at the church that I now pastor. S.H.I.E.L.D. S – Submit to Christ. H – Honor our commitments. I – Impact our community. E – Exemplify Christ’s love. L – Lead by serving. D – Defend the Weak. I take the shield mindset into everything that I do. When I made my first album in over 20 years called Unlocked, I made it with that mindset. My wife, and I feed people spiritually and literally at our church every week. We just started our City Market where we provide food and other items to those who need it. We have service Sundays at 11am and Wednesdays at 7:30pm. We are not a large church but we are effective in mission. We also are live online Saturdays at 11pm EST on facebook. We have learned to be a shield for others and share with others that Christ is our shield (Psalm 3:3 NIV). I am married to my wife of 17 years, Dr. Maria Byrd and together we have 3 children, Autumn, Eric, and Ann-Marie. I have multiple degrees, An associate of Applied Science in Audio Engineering, a Bachelors or Arts in Christian Humanities, a Masters in Christian Counseling and a Doctorate in Theological Studies. I am the proud Pastor of New Jerusalem the City Church in Decatur, Georgia, a gospel rap artist, a CEO, a multi-media company owner (Embyrd Designs & Print Agency), a radio show host, clothing line owner and an author. I Am a Shield.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It was definitely not a smooth road! There were so many obstacles but what comes to mind for me was school. I was smart but I didn’t like school. In hindsight it’s funny but after I found out there were not going to be anymore naps in class after Kindergarten I was done with school. My teachers would call home and say Eric is doing this or doing that, “Could you talk to him?” I remember my grandmother saying, “Does he need to go to summer school?” And the teacher would say, “For what? To Teach?” They would say he is great with his work and is probably the first one done but seems bored. I was probably the baddest, smartest child in my school. I scored off the charts but cI would talk back and challenge my teachers and I was always having some type of confrontation. I was kind of like the city; beautiful, but a mess. I had a shield up, always keeping everything out and always deflecting things from getting in. It really was my defense-mechanism. There was drugs, alcohol, smoking, guns, and fighting around me, outside of the house and sometimes inside. I could see the dangers of it all so I fought hard to not follow those tracks. My mom was in prison different times so at school I made up stories about how she worked out of town and I didn’t see her much. I was always hiding behind that shield. I could never be the real me I wanted to be. I had to be tough because of my environment. Mother’s teach boys to be tender but I wasn’t as tender because my mom was missing. I felt that I couldn’t be truthful about my reality because I was embarrassed by it. I got kicked out of middle school in the 6th grade, my parents got a divorce, and I always had this shield up to keep it all from penetrating me. I cared but I acted like I didn’t. I remember there was a span from about 10 to 19 that i only cried 3 times. I cried when my grandfather died and another time was when my uncle died, so that’s why those moments were monumental moments for me. Before that I shielded my emotions. I didn’t allow much to come in and I didn’t allow much to come out.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a pastor but I still love to create. I am known for being a pastor but im also known for Media design and music. Music and Media help me share the love of Christ. The truth is some people may never enter a church but they may watch a movie, a music video or listen to a song. I can help with that. Some people I’ve invited to church never came but they listen to our music. I love it because it’s another way for me to share the love of Christ with people. It’s a virtual pulpit that sometimes is just as effective as a sermon. I also serve God by making graphic designs for church’s and books, billboard, magazines, websites, album covers, clothing, etc. It’s cool to me to be able to make a cover thats so cool that the younger generation ends up reading the book and hearing the gospel through an unconventional way. I love to create. I always have and I always will. I am currently working on 4 books that will be release soon. I am also working on new music with my wife and I am looking forward to releasing some cool things that I believe will be a blessing to Atlanta. My album Unlocked is one of the things that I’m most proud of because I was able to make my first Gospel rap album and I was able to make it with some of my favorite people. My wife and children were also apart of the album which is so cool.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I loved sports and watching wrestling early in my life from about 3 to 12 years old. I excelled at school but got in a lot of trouble for my behavior. My test scores were off the charts, i made straight A’s and I excelled at literature and writing. I was very artistic. I was great at drawing and painting. I won many art contest city-wide and in school. I always loved music growing up (like my dad) but at 12 years old i fell in love with making music. I began to write raps. I would rap in the cafeteria at school while making beats on the table. It was like holding court. There would be maybe a hundred people standing around while we rapped until a teacher or administrator would break it up. I got good at rapping and became known as one of the best at the school. There was always someone who wanted to battle and I never lost. Free-styling was one of my best attributes so while many were rapping something that they wrote, I could make comebacks by saying things that were relevant to the moment. Many people from up North like New York thought that Atlanta rappers had too simple of a rhyme scheme so I took pride in battling them and proving that people from Atlanta could be lyrical as well. I would eventually earn a lot of their respect musically. Music helped me begin to deal with the shield I carried for so many years. It was an outlet. I could write my truth and be unapologetic about it. I no longer had to be embarrassed about my life. I actually began to wear my story as a badge of honor and see the beauty in it. I started seeing the message in the mess. I kept making music though high school. I began to make beats. I began to test instrumentation and get good at it. I released multiple albums in high school that people still mention today. I continued making music into college where I attended the Art Institute of Atlanta for Audio Production/Engineering.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eric.byrd/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/byrderic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ericbyrd5556
- Other: solo.to/ericbyrd
Image Credits
Embyrd Designs Inc.
