Detroit rapper spreads message of hope

DETROIT (WJBK) - A Detroit rapper who has been through a lot, is refusing to stay down and out.

Detroiter Nelson Seldon is a rapper who says he is looking to put a positive touch on his music. He made a video titled, "Tomorrow is not promised."

FOX 2: "Share some of the lyrics to the song."

"I say tomorrow is not promised to no man, woke up this morning, and I thanked him again, man. That right there is like every day we wake up, we wake up with a purpose," Seldon said.

Part of the video was recorded on Elmdale Street on Detroit's east side.

"We were just out here trying to give the visual of the realness," said Seldon.

Car parts from a crash, a burned up abandoned house which neighbors say has been this way since 2009. Nelson says his goal is to motivate people who see this every day.

"We see a lot of brokenness," he said. "We see a lot of abandoned buildings, but that doesn't justify who we are as a people. Greatness is in us."

Nelson said he is no stranger to tough times. Back to back in 2009 and 2010, he lost his mother to cancer, and soon after a cousin he considered a brother, murdered, thrown from a six-story building.

Nelson says he also became homeless and at one point, he sat in his car on Elmdale, and considered taking his own life.

"I was thinking about driving the car off the side of the road because I was just at my lowest," he said. "I felt just lost."

That's when Nelson says he found a purpose, and he went to bible school.

"I never thought in a million years I would go to bible college or do some of the things I have done," he said.

Now, he spends some of his time giving back to those in need.

"You serve a purpose," he said. "Each day that we get up. Even though it doesn't look like it, we serve a purpose in this community and this world."

For anyone who may be down on their luck or feeling tempted to go down the wrong path, Nelson has something to keep in mind.

"(There) is something great inside of you," he said. "And you can do something much more greater than what you just see."