Only Celebrities Touch That Stage. Years Later, They Called Him
Young Seda didn’t grow up thinking he’d be on anybody’s stage.
He grew up in the Riverside Projects in Wilmington, Delaware — an immigrant family, a Pentecostal household, and a neighborhood where friends going in and out of juvie was just a regular Tuesday. Music was always a safe place for him, but ministry? That wasn’t on the radar. Not yet.
His introduction to faith-based hip hop came through an unexpected chain — a Hobson interview led him to Lecrae, and Lecrae’s track “Nothing” rewired everything. It wasn’t the churchy version of Jesus he’d grown up around. It was Jesus in a hoodie speaking his language. He went from conscious rap fan to someone who actually wanted to know God beyond Easter and Christmas. And that shift cost him something. When he chose to walk a different path than the people around him, he walked it alone.
But the moment that might hit you the hardest in this conversation isn’t the one you’d expect.
It’s the story about his mom, a mall, and a pastor. Young Seda’s mom saw Pastor Hair out in public and told her son he should let the pastor know he makes music. Young Seda’s response? “Mom, only celebrities touch that stage.” He genuinely believed it. That church — Faith City — was the place that used to send school buses into Riverside to bring families to service. It was the place that gave away coats and bookbags and helped kids with academics. And the artists who performed on that stage? They were the ones Young Seda heard on the radio as a kid sitting in those same seats.
Years later, when he got the call to be part of the Reconnect — Holy Culture’s groundbreaking event held at that very church — he cried for an hour.
Not because he made it. Because God remembered.
The kid who sat in those seats became the man on that stage, ministering to the next generation of kids sitting in those same seats. Full circle doesn’t even cover it.
This episode of WhatItIzWhatItBeezLike?! is one of those conversations that sneaks up on you. Young Seda talks about surviving a robbery at gunpoint, hearing a voice as a child that told him he was a leader, choosing isolation over fitting in, and how his fiancée has become the missing piece in his ministry and his music. But under all of it is a thread that’s hard to ignore — the things God speaks over your life don’t expire just because you don’t believe them yet.
Maybe there’s a stage somewhere with your name on it that you’ve already talked yourself out of.
Connect with Young Seda: Instagram / TikTok / Facebook: @RealYoungSeda Booking: @RealYoungSeda or 3G Management New Single: “Come Back Home” — streaming now on Holy Culture Radio
Related Radio Show: WHATITIZWHATITBEEZLIKE?! RADIO SHOW
