Hatti “Universal” Cuevas
I am the emcee/producer/DJ behind “Minister Squad” hailing out of Suffolk county long island (strong island/lords Island) New York. Hip hop quickly became a love at the age of 5 after hearing rappers delight by sugar hill gang. There was nothing more exciting to me than listening to music. When I turned 12 I ran errands at the local record store to get the first crack at promo vinyl and cassettes for my collection.
The culture of hip hop, all four elements, became my obsession, scratching and djing, eventually making beats, freestyling in parking lots and house parties led to opening shows for 112, slick rick, funk flex, Keith Murray, fabulous and many more. My group Sub-Urban had two singles on billboard, music in video games, clothing deals, touring the east coast and were working our way into the music business. The love of music became more about the rap superstar dream and the chase for sex, money, and drugs led to depression, self-hate, anxiety, doubt, and addiction.
In 2007 I hit rock bottom, married with two kids I was still getting high. One night I went outside to smoke some weed and said to God I couldn’t do this anymore, I was so broken, and the Lord spoke to me. God said make a decision, follow me and everything will be ok. I knew I had heard the voice of God, I said ok and threw out my blunt. The next day when I woke up my first thought wasn’t about getting high, Instead, it was thanking God, I then fell out of bed to my knees, I knew God was real and I was set free.
I gave up all aspects of music and desired only what God wanted in my life. In the years that followed the Lord brought music back into my life. In the church, I learned about live mix engineering and started to use my emceeing/djing skills to lead choir and many youth events. It was through my youth leading days that I discovered gospel hip hop and the budding chh community. Blu heff entered my life and Minister Squad was birthed. We started to record and perform with one goal in mind, to bring salvation to the streets through Jesus Christ. Minister Squad has become more than a duo, it has become the production name under which music has been created and released featuring silas, blu, and myself.
through prayer and God’s grace a new door has opened in my life, I will be reviewing music for chh icon DJ I Rock Jesus for his straight ministry heat website. I appreciate this opportunity to serve the gospel/Christian music community and look forward to hearing all the new singles, e.p’s , full albums and videos. Please submit mp3’s and youtube links with the artist name and title in the email subject and a description of the song, album or video with the link. It will take time to go through the reviews so please be patient, let’s see who gets stamped certified straight ministry heat.
God bless,
Hatti “Universal “ Cuevas
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