We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Clifford Watkins Ii. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Clifford below.
Hi Clifford, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
As far as music is concerned, I’ve had a love for music and hip-hop for as long as I can remember. The first time I ever rapped on stage in front of an audience was in third grade for our black history program. I did a short rap about Thurgood Marshall. I remember getting off stage and people affirming me and telling me how good of a job they thought I’d done and that made me want to keep rapping even more. Now I believe it was God who gifted me but back then I never knew why I was never afraid of the stage. I definitely got nervous waiting for my turn but once I got on stage all my nerves went away it was like I was in my zone. My parents Cliff Sr. and Carolyn along with my aunt Lin helped me to get practice speaking at my childhood church Morning Star where I would memorize and recite Easter speeches and eventually get to read announcements to the entire congregation. I’m thankful to this day for my church families support and helping me believe in myself. Also as a kid I remember my big sister Tracy was a huge influence on me creatively because she was a great poet. I remember going to watch her perform in a talent show when she was in college and it got me really excited. She was also my best friend growing up I remember she always made time to talk or hang out with me I never felt like a burden to her she always made me feel loved. And she did that with my music as well. As for me the next time I would rap would be in a talent show at Lincoln middle school. I remember this really well. I wrote a rap for me and my friend Marcus over the instrumental to JT Money’s “Who Dat”. We practiced and bought matching shoes from Eastbay magazine. We were ready. Or at least I was lol. It was our time to go up and all of sixth grade was cheering for us, we had to win the upper classmen over because they were skeptical. Once the beat started playing I remember having so much fun and the crowd was loving it but then my party was done and I looked over and Marcus was frozen. Then the laughs started and I tried to rap for him but it was too late. I got some good congratulations around school after that but it wasn’t good for Marcus. And I felt like I didn’t have anyone to rap with anymore so I stopped. I still loved it so I would freestyle battle at lunch or record mixtape cassettes in my room but nothing serious. I figured there was no point. I saw Bow Wow rapping as a kid and I thought “I can do that” but I had no one to take me to a Snoop Dogg show and my parents weren’t fans of hip hop. So my focus switched to sports throughout high school but eventually my love for music resurfaced in college.
Clifford, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I originally got into the business of music while working as a DJ at my universities radio station while attending Kansas State.
One day on campus at a Black Student Union meeting I met the urban director for the schools radio station. And she was looking for radio hosts. As we began to chat I found out she was a Christian and she offered me an opportunity to host a Christian Hip Hop segment at the radio station and I gladly accepted. I named myself DJ-Hizway. The show was on Sunday from 10pm-12am but I didn’t care I was just happy to play music that had helped change my life and hope someone that hadn’t heard about it might hear and benefit from it as much as I had. That same year another student in my dorm that was a producer gave me some beats and invited me to record in the Universities free studio. At that point I had been so focused on my baseball dreams I hadn’t thought about doing Christian hip hop myself. But once I started writing and recording I couldn’t stop. And I performed at campus events and my local church there. Sometimes I even played my own songs on the radio. I got a job that summer at Kids Across America (KAA) summer camps and I shared my music there too and performed and people enjoyed it so I kept doing it. Even though I didn’t think much of my music one day I was approached by the editor of the school newspaper and they wanted to do a front page article about my faith journey and my music. I always thought that if I did anything important it would be through sports so I was shocked and I knew it had to be God that created that opportunity for me. Over time I became the urban director at the radio station and when it came time to graduate I didn’t want to stop doing radio but I knew I had to. After college I didn’t stop doing music and eventually an organization called “I Am Second” asked me to tour colleges with them and perform my music.
This lasted for a couple years and then stopped but I kept writing and recording songs. A year or two later a local record label in Kansas City called “iWitness Music” reached out and wanted to sign me to a deal and I signed. During my time with iWitness music I changed my artist name to “Hizway” since I wasn’t a radio DJ anymore and I wrote and recorded my “No Fear” EP based on Psalm 27:1. My time with iWitness was short but rewarding. We went on one national tour and even though I didn’t make a lot of money from my deal being able to have someone else pay for the quality production of my music and traveling expenses was a huge blessing. Around the time that my record deal with iWitness ended I got married. After that I still did some performances here and there but my main focus was figuring out how to be a husband and with that I needed a more steady income so I locked in on my corporate job at the time to make sure I had steady income. Then about a year later we found out we were expecting my son. So music gladly took even more of a back seat as now I had to learn how to be a father. About two years later we found out we were expecting our daughter. In the midst of that joy and stress of thinking about how to be a parent of two I found out that my wife had been hiding some things that lead to our separation and eventually us going through the process of divorce. But in the midst of all that music was still a passion of mine that my great friend Ryan Upton helped rediscover in the midst of the pain of my marriage failing and leaking how to be a single parent. I see now that God used Ryan to help me not give up on the gift He has given me. Now I don’t just record solo music but I also record with a group of like minded guys focused on sharing Gods glory in our lives. We call ourselves “Undrafted” because we know we are just regular people that are often overlooked but we know God likes to use those types of people. Because I’m an independent artist and I don’t make much profit from my music after the costs of production and promoting, my main job is another passion of mine which is teaching. For the past 5 years I’ve been a teacher at Brookside Charter School and I’ve loved being there on a daily basis for students from the very community I grew up in and when they find out Mr. Watkins is also a rapper they get even more engaged and I get to see the beauty of students of color getting to have a black male educator that they can look up to that they know loves them in the classroom.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
I believe we have to do a better job of nurturing creativity in our communities and school classrooms. We have to recognize how much creativity fuels our day to day lives through music, television and movies and create opportunities for children to do that and explore those possibilities in school as real options just like any other occupation.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding part of being a creative artist is when people enjoy my work as I’m being my authentic self. I’d add to that when I hear that I have inspired someone in some way shape or form. And last but not least when I feel that I’m glorifying God because I’m walking in my purpose and making the most out of the gifts He’s given me because I truly believe Ephesians 2:10
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/hizwaymusic?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=5dc98098-a5ba-475a-8e97-0c60c38e0f31
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hizway816?igsh=MWt2bzI5emw0dm1leg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@hizway816kc?si=51dcZGJDacX_dQAt
- Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/wnJuAVXrdPPR9rAx6
- Other: Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/artist/2rm7okHeUSr2S2Hd3QxnJ6?si=WSb3lddyQDGJR3g7CZsLRA
Image Credits
Ryan Upton, Jessie Kerns