Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sweetie Shumaker. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sweetie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

If I could go back in time I wish that I would have started my career later. I’ve been writing music since elementary school but in 2017 my junior year in college, I decided to take music seriously and pursue it as a career path. Once I began writing music with my new found identity as an artist I wrote songs for fun, making songs that I could dance to. None of the songs had any substance behind them, they were vulgar & lots of profanity was being used. For a time I was successful but in 2022 things started to slow down & I began working on my relationship with God. I was no longer satisfied with my life & I started going through an identity crisis. I decided the HipHop/R&B music that I was writing needed to have a message behind it & I also wrote a few Gospel songs here & there.
January 29,2023 I gave my life to Christ & got baptized! I recieved a new life, a clean slate & I died to my old ways! My mindset was renewed through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit & I found myself writing more praise and worship music! I made a conscience decision that since I’ve been reconciled to God through my Lord & savior Jesus Christ, I no longer wanted to use profanity in my music! All the songs I wrote from then on out were clean songs with a message behind them! Fast forward to Now in 2024, I only write praise & worship music!!! My music now is 1000x times better than the previous music that I was putting out before. I literally never run out of words to say about my God!
I wish that I would have waited until after I had a relationship with God to start releasing music! Now that I have a solid foundation, I realize that I was misusing my gift. What you listen to has a huge impact on you, regardless of if you recognize it or not. Music is powerful and very influential in our society! I strive to create music that not only glorifies our creator but uplifts, inspires, empowers & heals others instead of normalizing dysfunctional, toxic, manipulative, adulterous & negative behavior.
I’ve matured and I don’t do what I used to.
I’m very intentional about my actions & my motives behind them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Sweetie, I’m a 27 year old Gospel Artist! I began making music as a child & I stuck with it. Writing is my God given talent. I’m on a mission to save souls & bring glory to God! Jesus Christ gave me a second chance when he died for all of our sins! I’m going to make the most of my second chance, the earlier parts of my life I made some mistakes but I’ve been made new & I know better now.
I will live a life that is pleasing to the Lord & live in a way that is worthy of being a child of God.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part is writing a song, recording it & releasing it into the world! I enjoy listening & seeing everything all come together!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I stopped caring about the way that others see me & started caring about how God saw me! I began writing songs & dropping freestyles on my social media and people began tuning in. My advice is to just start! Start with what you have. Even if you are unable to go to a studio and record your music or if you don’t have money to purchase beats that’s okay, drop some freestyles on your page or turn on a instrumental and sing/rap the song on your page. Everytime I write a new song, I turn on an instrumental & use the voice memo to record myself. I keep the recording and play it back to myself on the Documents app until I am able to get in the studio and record or until I am ready to sing it on my social media account.
If there is a will then there is a way & singing on the instrumental is better than not singing at all. If you know God is calling you into music but you don’t have the resources yet, work with what you have!!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: SweetieTheTruth