Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We have a really
fascinating journey ahead of us today. We really
do. Yeah, we're taking a close look at a single,
highly detailed biographical source today. We're
exploring the life, the art, and the, well, the
complex career evolution of Michael Boyer II.
Right. Though you listening right now, you likely
know him better by his stage name, Noda Verbs.
Yeah. Or, as he was known later in his career,
simply verbs. Exactly. He is an American Christian
hip -hop artist originally hailing from Phoenix,
Arizona. And he managed to carve out a massive
footprint in a really specific, rapidly changing
musical ecosystem. Our mission today is to sift
through the facts of his discography and his
timeline. We want to uncover the broader story
here. We're looking at what it takes to navigate
intense cultural pushback, how an artist evolves
their own identity in the public eye, and really
the mechanics. of becoming a vital collaborative
force in your chosen field. Because on the surface,
you're just reading a standard biographical article,
right? And a list of album credits. But beneath
that... You find the trajectory of an artist
who was attempting to build a platform in a space
that was, frankly, still trying to figure out
its own boundaries. Yeah, completely. You're
examining an individual who constantly had to
negotiate the tension between his faith, the
hip -hop art form, and the often rigid expectations
of his local community. And to really understand
that tension, I want to bring you, the listener,
right back to the very beginning of his story.
Just imagine being 12 years old. Just a kid.
Just a kid. You've just discovered the thing
that makes you tick. You know exactly what you
want to do with your life. You want to rap. You
want to immerse yourself in hip hop. Right. But
when you bring that newfound passion to your
own community, specifically to the going by churches
you attend in Phoenix, they do not offer encouragement.
No, they don't. They literally laugh at you.
And the source points out. about this highly
specific, pretty brutal detail, they actually
exclaim that your chosen art form is a, quote,
Pit of hell. It is such a striking image. I mean,
to be 12 years old is to be inherently vulnerable.
Oh, absolutely. When you face that specific kind
of vehement theological rejection from the adults
and the community leaders you're supposed to
look up to, the psychological weight of that
is just immense. Yeah. It wasn't just a matter
of them disliking the music. They were assigning
a moral and spiritual failing to the art form
itself. Which really sets the stage for a career
built on friction. Today, we are going to explore
how Verbs pushed through that initial rejection.
We'll look at the foundational years he spent
paying his dues, his unique lyrical approach
that defied the extremes of his genre, a major
branding shift, and... Well, a deeply unconventional
decision to put a thriving commercial career
completely on hold. A huge pivot. Yeah. And finally,
we will break down the massive network of collaborations
he built. OK, let's untack this. So the early
days are crucial to understanding his later resilience.
The source notes that his journey into the industry
didn't just magically begin with a solo record
contract. Right. He was putting in significant
groundwork long before he was the main act. By
the mid -90s, he was actually spending time dancing
with the group Jirits. Which is wild because
he wasn't even front and center with a microphone
at that stage. Exactly. He was physically participating
in the culture adjacent to the music. He was
experiencing the grueling reality of tours and
stage performances before his solo recording
career even took off. He was putting in the sweat
equity. That physical participation demonstrates
a profound dedication to the hip -hop culture
itself. He was learning the rhythm of the industry
from the inside out. But then we return to that
massive point of conflict. He's trying to merge
this authentic hip -hop expression with his faith,
taking it to those nearby churches, and the reaction
is visceral. What's fascinating here is the sheer
difficulty of trying to pioneer something new
when the hardest pushback comes from your own
backyard. Yeah, that local resistance. We tend
to think of innovators battling faceless corporations
or broad market trends. But the most paralyzing
resistance is usually local. It's the people
in your immediate vicinity telling you that your
vision is fundamentally flawed. Because in a
religious context, the stakes are elevated from,
hey, this won't sell to this is inherently wrong.
Right. That kind of localized pressure would
force most young creatives to simply conform
to whatever their community deemed acceptable.
Most people would just put the microphone down.
Right. But he required an incredible amount of
internal validation to keep going. Since he wasn't
getting any external validation from those nearby
churches, he had to rely entirely on his own
internal compass. He had to trust his own gut.
He had to trust his own conviction that the culture
of hip -hop and his personal faith were not mutually
exclusive, despite the laughter of the adults
in his life. I want you to think about that for
a moment in the context of your own life. It's
terrifying. It is. It requires a rare kind of
stubbornness to hold your ground when the people
closest to you are telling you to abandon ship.
And that specific kind of stubbornness eventually
translated into a viable career. He ultimately
signs with Goatee Records, which was a label
that was crucial in developing that specific
market. In 1999, he releases his debut album,
The Syllabus. Classic. And he follows it up just
one year later in 2000 with his sophomore project,
The Action Figure. The titles themselves feel
like a direct response to those early years of
friction. Like, The Syllabus sounds like he is
establishing his curriculum, laying out the foundational
arguments for why his art deserves to exist.
Right. And then The Action Figure suggests taking
those concepts off the chalkboard and putting
them into dynamic motion. The source notes that
both of these early albums were fairly successful
for gospel rap, which indicates that he was successfully
carving out an audience. He was transitioning
from the kid who was laughed out of the sanctuary
to an artist with a measurable commercial footprint.
But the most revealing detail in the text is
the specific description of how he actually wrote
his music. The source states that his lyrics
took a middle ground approach. So what does this
all mean? Well, the text defines this middle
ground as sitting somewhere between the explicit
doctrine of a group like the cross movement and
the poetic musings of grits. Got it. To understand
the tightrope he was walking, we have to understand
the musical spectrum of that era. On one end,
you had the cross movement. There were that gritty
East Coast boom bap sound focused heavily on
street preaching. Very direct. Highly direct.
Unambiguous and unapologetically instructional.
It was theological declaration over beat. On
the other end of the spectrum, you had grits.
They brought a funkier southern alternative vibe.
Their lyrics leaned heavily into the abstract.
It was about the feeling, the metaphor, and the
artistic ambiguity of the human experience. But
doesn't trying to find a middle ground usually
risk alienating both sides? Usually when an artist
tries to please the purists who want direct messaging
and the creatives who want artistic abstraction,
they just end up with a watered down product
that nobody really loves. How did he avoid that
trap? That is the danger of the middle ground
if it's treated as a compromise. But for Verbs,
it wasn't a compromise. It was a synthesis. He
figured out how to deliver clear, substantive
messages without sacrificing the sonic and poetic
elements of hip -hop. Okay, that makes sense.
He wasn't just giving a dry lecture over a drum
loop, nor was he hiding his core beliefs behind
layers of confusing metaphors. He found a way
to be understood clearly while maintaining a
high level of artistic credibility. Which relates
so directly to how we all communicate, doesn't
it? Whether you're listening right now and you're
drafting an important email or you're giving
a presentation or creating art yourself, finding
that balance between being perfectly direct,
that explicit doctrine, and engagingly creative
with the poetic musings is a universal challenge.
Absolutely. It's the difference between being
heard and being felt. He managed to do both.
He managed to thread the needle. He kept the
listener engaged with the artistry, the poetic
side, while ensuring the actual substance of
his message landed, the explicit side. It is
a mature artistic choice, especially for a genre
that was still suffering from an identity crisis,
trying to figure out if it was a ministry tool
or a legitimate art form. Verbs essentially proved
it could be... Both simultaneously. And that
maturity leads right into a major turning point
in his career timeline. After establishing himself
with the syllabus and the action figure, we see
a distinct shift. He drops the nota from his
stage name. Right. He transitions from nota verbs
to the much sleeker, more streamlined verbs.
Rebranding is a tricky maneuver. Usually signals
an artist wanting to shed the novelty of their
early work and step into a more confident, focused
era, he's paring down the moniker to its core
action. Just the verb. He begins preparing his
first album under this new name, a project titled
Unlocked, slated for a 2003 release. But the
source material includes a detail that completely
disrupts the standard music industry narrative.
It really does. The album was delayed, and the
delay wasn't caused by label disputes or sample
clearance issues or creative block. It was delayed
because Verbs made the decision to spend six
months in South Africa on a mission with his
home church in Nashville, Tennessee. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, you have to realize
how incredibly rare this is in the entertainment
business. Let's look at the momentum he had built.
He survived the early rejection, he secured a
deal with Godi Records, he dropped two successful
albums back to back, and he had just executed
a fresh rebrand. He was on fire. The industry
playbook dictates that you never step off the
gas when you have that kind of traction. You
tour endlessly, you stay in the studio, and you
keep your name relevant. Because it is an industry
built on the fear of being forgotten. To intentionally
leave the country and step away from the microphone
for half a year is almost unheard of for an artist
on the rise. It speaks volumes about his internal
hierarchy of values. In a culture obsessed with
relentless career momentum, he actively chose
to hit the pause button. He recognized that his
personal grounding, his faith and his commitment
to his home church in Nashville superseded his
album release schedule. He chose global service
over commercial capitalization. How often do
you feel pressured to just keep producing and
moving forward? it forces you to wonder how valuable
it could be to hit pause for a higher calling
or just a grounding real world experience. And
you have to wonder how that trip impacted the
thematic arc of his later work. Definitely. Before
he left, he was gearing up for Unlocked, a title
that implies breaking out, launching the new
solo identity. But when you look at the titles
of the work he released after returning from
South Africa, the tone shifts entirely. He does.
He drops an EP in 2006 called The Groundwork
3P, and then his next major... major studio album
in 2007 is called The Groundwork Theory, released
under a new label, 1280 Music. The shift from
unlock to groundwork is telling. It suggests
an artist who went from focusing on his own breakout
potential to focusing on what holds everything
together at the base level. You don't spend six
months doing mission work in South Africa without
it fundamentally altering your perspective on
what truly matters. Yeah, that changes a person.
It seems to have grounded him, shifting his focus
away from the industry treadmill and back to
the foundational elements of his life and art.
He stepped away from the microphone to physically
live out the lyrics he had been writing. But
while those solo albums from the syllabus up
to the groundwork theory are impressive, here's
where it gets really interesting. When you look
at the source material. the most extensive section
isn't dedicated to his solo career not at all
it is the staggering list of his collaborative
work the sheer volume of his guest appearances
paints a picture of an artist who functioned
as a structural pillar for his entire musical
community he wasn't operating in a silo Let's
look at the breadth of this network. His connection
with Greets obviously didn't end with dancing
in the 90s. He is deeply embedded in their discography.
He's featured on their album Factors of the Seven,
tracks like US Open and Hopes and Dreams. Right.
He appears on Grammatical Revolution on the track
Strugglin'. He's on the Art of Translation and
their album Quarantine. That is a recurring multi
-album creative partnership. And that is just
one group. The list extends rapidly across different
sounds and subgenres. Oh, it's massive. He works
extensively with the R &B group Out of Eden.
He is a staple on DJ Mage's mixtapes. And we
have to remember, in the late 90s and early 2000s,
mixtapes were the lifeblood of hip -hop discovery.
The absolute core of it. Verbs is featured on
DJ Mage's Wax Museum, Full Plates, The Ringleader,
Boogie Root, and Sabbatical Transit. He is collaborating
with KJ52, Camp Quest, and Petity. He even crosses
genre lines entirely to work with the rock group
Pillar on a track called Galactic Groove and
collaborates with the alternative band Silage
on a track titled, appropriately, Verb. When
you look at that diverse catalog of features,
you see a masterclass in versatility. Going from
the southern alternative bounce of grits to a
rock track with Pillar and then holding your
own on a DJ Mage mixtape requires an incredibly
adaptable skill set. He became the connective
tissue of the Christian hip hop ecosystem. But
what is the strategic value of being that connective
tissue? Does spreading yourself across so many
different projects dilute your own solo brand?
Actually, in an era before algorithmic playlists
and streaming recommendations, it was the ultimate
form of cross -pollination. A fan who bought
a Pillar CD for the rock music would hear Verbs
on Galactic Groove. That makes a lot of sense.
That fan might then track down a DJ Mage mixtape
to hear more of him. And suddenly they're introduced
to an entirely different segment of the hip -hop
scene. Verbs serve as a bridge between disparate
fan bases. It redefines what success looks like
in the music industry. His footprint wasn't just
measured by the albums with his face on the cover.
It was measured by the fabric he wove with his
peers. You do not get invited into the studio
by that many different artists across that many
different genres unless you are bringing something
highly valuable, professional, and ego -free
to the table. And that brings us full circle
back to his middle ground approach. Because his
lyrical style was balanced, neither too aggressively
dogmatic nor too abstract, his voice could fit
seamlessly into almost any context. Right, he
was adaptable. He could complement the lead artist's
vision without clashing with it or overpowering
it. His artistic balance made him the ideal collaborator.
It is a remarkable journey when you view it from
a distance. We started by looking at Michael
Boyer II. A 12 -year -old kid in Phoenix facing
down the harsh reality of nearby churches, laughing
at him and labeling his passion a pit of hell.
A localized rejection that could have easily
ended his artistic pursuits before they even
began. Yet from that friction, he built a massive
legacy. He put in the physical work dancing for
grits. He pioneered a synthesized lyrical style
that bridged the gap between explicit East Coast
street preaching and Southern poetic abstraction.
He achieved tangible commercial success with
records like The Syllabus and The Action Figure.
He then demonstrated a rare clarity of priorities,
evolving his identity to simply verbs and proving
that an artist can step off the commercial treadmill.
He paused his momentum for six months to do mission
work in South Africa, an experience that seemingly
influenced his later focus on laying down the
groundwork. And he proved that ultimate impact
in any industry often lies in becoming the ultimate
collaborator. He left a sprawling fingerprint
across the discographies of his peers, acting
as the vital connective tissue that helped legitimize
and expand his genre. The source noted his lyrics
took a middle ground approach between explicit
doctrine and poetic musings. When you are trying
to communicate your own deeply held beliefs or
complex ideas in your life, do you lean towards
being blunt and explicit? Or do you rely on poetry
and nuance to get your point across? And more
importantly, what might happen if you tried to
find the middle ground? That is a fascinating
question to leave you with and something to seriously
consider the next time you look at the landscape
of modern media. Thank you for joining us on
this deep dive into the source material. We always
appreciate you coming along for the ride and
we will catch you on the next one. Take care.