Jaron Nurse: Fed Up of negativity

TIRED of the songs promoting negativity, Jaron Nurse, an award-winning local gospel artiste decided to record a song about it. The result was Fed Up, the name alone says it all.

Nurse, 29, spoke with Sunday Newsday at the Haig Street football field a short distance away from his School Street, Carenage home. Behind him was the Carenage wall of fame, his name not yet on the wall, but he is not interested in that. His goal is to get the message of Jesus’ love to the public and the song is the vehicle for that.

Asked what inspired the song and video, the first music video he ever did, Nurse, who is called “Frame” by those closest to him, said it was life that stimulated him to write the song. He said: “Music has an impact on the way you behave and youths gravitating to some songs that promoting negativity so I decided to use some of the same lyrics that the youths using and put in a song.”

Nurse added that even while recording the song he was still “on kicks” never thinking that it would be a serious project. After it was released and he received feedback, he fully understood the impact it could have.

“God knows my heart is not about fame and popularity. This song can open doors to get the message of Jesus out. The song is the bait and right now fish biting,” he chuckled.

His next venture is the launch of his clothing line, Jesus Youth and his local gospel competition with the winner getting to perform at all his booked events and a professionally-done recording of the winner’s original song. The competition will be called Uncommon Privilege.

Nurse said his song and video was released on March 28, the following day he resigned as a courier, with just $17 to his name. One day later he was gifted a credit card with a $17,000 limit and an undisclosed sum of US. He added that from March 29 to April 4 the country recorded no murders and while he is not attributing the phenomenon to his song, he believes that it was in “God’s perfect timing.” With 100,000 views in five days of the Expression House Media video, Nurse is taking every opportunity to share not only his song but his conversion and commitment to Christ.

Nurse said growing up he got into a lot of trouble because he suffered from what he called the worst sickness known to man, un-forgiveness. His father, Roger Nurse, a drug addict and his mother, Amanda Nurse who is mentally ill, were forced to give him to friends of theirs. The taunting growing up hearing that he was the son of a “piper” and “mad woman” and he was adopted forced Nurse to defend his honour with violence.

“I hated my father because everything people tell me is because of my father I had a hate for him and that invited low self-esteem. I started doing foolishness selling marijuana getting in fights and trouble with the law. I never had much size so I resorted to weapons with weapons,” Nurse said.

With his praying adopted mother Jennifer Thomas, or “Sister Jenny” as she is known in the community, Nurse began his journey on the path of righteousness after she discovered his hidden marijuana stash. Since his fights made him a target for school security at Tranquillity Government Secondary School, Nurse outsourced his business venture to a classmate named George. He also was not allowed to purchase the marijuana in his community because everyone knew Sister Jenny as his mother and would not sell him. After the drugs were found, he never indulged in them. His business partners, though, had a different outcome in life. George the salesman was killed when he attempted to rob a prostitute, and his buyer, Abidi, is currently in prison awaiting trial for murder.

“Is two things they design for youths in these areas, is either you pass slow in a hearse or fast in a prison bus,” Nurse said as he recalled the number of friends he had who had died.

Since his transition from a troubled teen having to be spared charges by police after his fellow residents begged for him, Nurse has become a motivational speaker at his former secondary school three years consecutively. The first time he did it, the guidance officer told him he was surprised that he (Nurse) was still alive. Nurse said even while he was singing gospel music he harboured resentment towards his father until he got a conviction while playing cards with his pastor.

After that, he said he began seeing a change in his life. He summed it up like this: “The day God clean up my life was the day he start to messy up my passport.

“The bigger blessing for me now is to jump on a plane for Jesus, knowing that I grew up hearing people saying you is a good for nothing, you won’t do anything good, you adopted, your mother mad and father is a piper. The same boy who used to cry for them thing look at what Jesus do, take my misery and make it with my ministry,” Nurse said.

Nurse said he now has a better relationship with both parents, who are now separated. His mother lives nearby in Carenage and his father lives in Laventille. He considers his life to be a full cycle as his mother was the one who encouraged his adopted mother to go to church and encouraged her to live a Christian lifestyle. He remains thankful for his parents and adopted parents, who he acknowledges as “mummy and daddy” when he speaks of his upbringing.

He regarded himself prior to his conversion as a “Sunday morning backslider.” “I always telling people I am like a fish, when you season a fish you have to put salt, the fish spend the whole life in the salt water but never get salt in him. That was me I spend all my life in church but church was not in me. I was different in the dark,” Nurse recalled.

Nurses highlighted that while he retired from his job of two years as a courier, he is “still delivering messages, in Jesus’ name.”