Article By Dianna Hobbs/ EEW MAGAZINE JAN 2015

Jason’s life has not been a fairy tale.

But to understand the miracle of grace that has transpired in the life of the Stellar Award nominated Christian rapper known as “Json,” you have to travel back to the north side of St. Louis.

Born Jason Watson in 1981, at three years old, he lost his father and shortly thereafter, was uprooted from his hometown.

Jason’s mother Barbara moved him to Los Angeles, the notorious breeding ground for the crack-cocaine fueled epidemic of the eighties.

Just as many African-Americans did during the Reagan era, Jason’s mother became addicted to the powerful, accessible and cheap substance, setting off an unfortunate chain of events.

Barbara was nabbed on a gun charge, forced to return to St. Louis and leave young Jason in LA with no mother or father. But later, he, too, returned to his home city.

By 12, despite vowing that he would never use drugs after seeing its negative impact on his mother, that self-made promise was broken.

After his first marijuana high, Jason was hooked and used the popular drug daily. By age 15, he had graduated to snorting heroin.

But he didn’t graduate from high school.

At 16, Jason dropped out.

So began the cycle of heavy drug-dealing, addiction, gang-banging and arrests. Jason was convinced that he would end up like most of his friends: dead before 21.

He was wrong.

At 21, he gave his life to Jesus Christ.

“My wife played a pivotal role in me getting saved. Honestly, without her, I don’t know where I’d be,” the 33-year-old told EEW Magazine.

He was 19 when he met Lawanda Childress, whom he calls Nikki, at a sports event.

“When I saw Nikki, at the time, I was really high—gone—but I approached her anyway and we exchanged information. We became really good friends.”

Though Nikki, unlike Jason, had grown up in church, back then, she was not living in accordance with the foundations of the faith she was taught as a child. So she got tied up in the dangerous lifestyle of her boyfriend, a reckless drug and alcohol-abuser, dope-pusher and gangbanger.

Lawanda Childress and Jason Watson fell in love and together, were immersed in a dangerous lifestyle on the inner city streets of St. LouisFor a time, she was what the hood would call the quintessential “ride-or-die chick,” always standing by her man.

But all that changed after a divine encounter with Christ, reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s Damascus road experience in Acts 9, snatched Nikki out of sin’s grip.