Meet Garrett Prather of PrayTheorem in Aurora

Today we’d like to introduce you to Garrett Prather.

Garrett, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In my own head, the story of my music seems to have a lot of moving parts. If I were to go back in time and say to myself at 17 years old that I was going to be pursuing music and poetry– specifically rap; my young confused self would have laughed hysterically.

Starting off way back, I was an athlete before I could truly grasp sports themselves; but, I was also very intrigued with music. I took piano lessons when I was five but never continued any other musical activities except choir for one year in the 5th grade (and was harassed by my classmates for it). From then on, I stuck to sports all throughout high school because that was the “popular” thing to do (I subconsciously thought in my adolescent brain). Once the sports ended after my senior year, in my own head I thought I was finally free. But this freedom came with a price.

I decided to go to college at Denver’s own Metropolitan State University and lived downtown in student housing off of 38th ave. Up to this point, I had already been struggling with mental health issues like depression and anxiety since I was 13, but I had never truly gotten help for it. This led me to drowning my sorrows and searching for myself in ways I shouldn’t have, now that I had my own freedom away from home.

The substance abuse led me to even darker places in my mind, and I had hit a rock bottom. I knew had to find a way out, and that is when I found poetry. The words I wrote would just float along the line and give me rhymes that eased my mind, and I was obsessed. After a year of writing and about five notebooks full, I decided I needed to do something with it all; and from there, I started rapping… this was about last year.

Has it been a smooth road?
My journey thus far has not been a smooth one, to say the least. When I started rapping, I didn’t tell anyone, even my closest friends. I stayed in my car for hours and hours, rapping on my phone into this app called Rapchat. If you go back in my 185 posts I’ve made on Instagram, you’ll find some of the first raps I ever made. Most of these were very angry but very raw. I knew I had a passion for this because it would almost feel as if I was outside of my body when rapping.

From there, I bought $500 worth of studio equipment and made my start. One of the biggest struggles I’ve had in my journey is just believing in myself. I am truly my own worst critic, and honestly, think I am horrible at this, but quite a few people seem to think otherwise; so I just kept pushing. I am currently in front of an obstacle that has plagued my mind since the beginning, which has been the fact that I don’t have any downloadable/streamable music available besides my Instagram.

This alone has made me want to throw in the towel completely, but the Lord above has provided me with some amazing friends who are helping me finally release my first project in a couple of months. So the moral of the story is, obstacles are only bumps in the road.

Tell us more about your work.
I guess you could say PrayTheorem is my own business and company, but I don’t really want to limit this to myself. Like I said, I started all of this to get myself out of the dark rooms that I occupied for a long time. As I continued, and others reached out to me saying that I was speaking a powerful message, it led me to focus on others who are like me in away.

The people that struggle with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, and tend to bottle it up without telling anyone; those are the people I want to help. I also want to present a message for those who are the outcasts in life; my music is pretty much anti-rap–if you will. I don’t want to spread a message to the world that places its values in the materialism, drugs, womanizing, and downright evil talk that a majority of music (rap specifically) communicates. I believe life is too meaningful to focus on things that won’t bring love back, full circle. Although my lyrics may seem depressing and angry sometimes, they come from a place of love for every human to take it as they will.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
In the music industry in general, it will continue booming how it has since The Beatles, just through different avenues. Music is one phenomena in human nature that will always be needed, and will always be popular. Specifically speaking, in our day and age, music has exploded even more so due to the increase of technology.

This increase of musical technology has allowed people like myself (who don’t even play an instrument) to become independent artists, and have the possibility to reach a variety of different individuals. This can be used for good and can be used for evil, but I plan to use this opportunity presented to shed some light to this hurting world. In the next 5-10 years, I plan to be producing/creating music full time in hopes to create my own label for artists like myself.

• Phone: 7204021697
• Email: PrayTheorem@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/praytheorem/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Praytheorem-349816755669771/

Image Credit:
Avory Allmand

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