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Check Out Clifford Watkins II (Hizway)’s Story

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Clifford Watkins II (Hizway)

Hi Clifford, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised here in Kansas City, Missouri. I lived near Benton BLVD and Freedom Fountain for most of my childhood. 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 family’s 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 part 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. And later at the age of 16 it was my baseball coach and mentor Brittan that introduced me to the type of hip hop that would eventually help change my life. Brittan was the son of my dads best friend who I called Uncle Leonard. Brittan played professional baseball and after he finished his career he offered to work with me and teach me the game. At the time Brittan was a young husband and faithful Christian and I had never met anyone like him who lived their life with purpose, excellence and kindness the way he did. So I wanted to soak up as much as I could especially when it came to baseball because now my new dream was to go pro like he did. But one day while we were hanging together he played some music for me and it was Christian Hip Hop and I hated it. The beats sounded interesting but I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying I just knew it wasn’t like the 50 cent or Lil Wayne I was bumping in my car. But little did I know God was using that moment to plant a seed. A couple years later when I was 18 and a senior in high school I took a part time job working at a local hospital to make some extra money before baseball season. It was a few weeks after my friends who graduated a year before me threw me a birthday party at their apartment. I lied and told my parents adults would be there even though I knew they wouldn’t and my friends had got some marijuana and I normally didn’t smoke being an athlete but I let them talk me into it. I got high and I remember while I was there my girlfriend at the time came and we hooked up. And I remember waking up the next day so nervous because I knew because I was under the influence and not thinking clearly we didn’t use protection. So now with all this on my mind while working one night at the hospital a coworker struck up a conversation with me about Jesus. And I remember thinking it was so weird like we aren’t at church so why are we talking about Jesus. But he asked me if I knew Jesus and I told him “yes I do”. Then he asked me to tell him what I knew about him. And I responded with the facts I knew about Easter and Christmas. And next he said something to me that I had never heard before. He told me that I knew about Jesus but I didn’t actually know him personally. And at that moment for the first time I realized that even though I had grown up in church I wasn’t a Christian. After wrestling with that thought all night the next morning I went and found my little kid Bible with picture illustrations and started reading. And as I started reading the first chapter of Proverbs I realized God was reaching out to me. From that moment on I decided to live for Jesus. A few days later I remembered the Christian Hip Hop Brittan had played for me and I went to the Christian bookstore to find those CDs. At this point I still wanted to play professional baseball so I went to the local MLB combine but I didn’t get picked up. I had an offer to play at a small school in Georgia but I really wanted to go to a bigger university so I chose Kansas State in Manhattan, KS hoping the baseball coach there would let me walk on. So after I got there I did meet with the baseball coach but he didn’t let me walk on to the team and that kinda crushed me. But one day on campus at a Black Student Union meeting I met the urban director for the university’s 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 university’s 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 me rediscover in the midst of the pain of my marriage failing and learning 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 that I’m 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. As tragic and trying as the pandemic was and for some still is I thank God that I was able to use that time to start and finish my Masters degree in Education so that I can be a better resource for my students. So when I’m not being a single dad to my two awesome kids, at church, finding time to write and record music or doing shows you can find me at a students soccer game or birthday party just trying to be a valuable member of our community.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have been a lot of struggles along the way.
As an independent artist and parent it’s really hard to continue to invest money in music when there is no profit for you. Because even though you love it and pray it does some good in the world you don’t want to be irresponsible and not have enough to take care of your kids who depend on you.

Another huge struggle has been to trust God and keep my faith in the midst of my marriage failing. This was a huge blow to my heart and my desire for my kids to not experience divorce. So learning to love someone for who they are to your kids even though they hurt you is a big challenge but God is helping me learn how to do that on a daily basis. It teaches me to remember that we are all human beings and people are more than who I need them to be for me, so I have to learn how to honor the whole person despite if they fail me in a certain area and pray that people do the same for me.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What sets me apart as an artist is my authenticity about my faith, life and experiences in my music.

I’m very thankful that I’ve gotten to make songs with Dove Award winning producers and artists like K-Drama and J-Luv.

My music has been featured on sites like Rapzilla.com.

As well as played on award winning radio stations like Gospel Grind Radio.
I’m thankful to say I’ve been interviewed by stations like Gospel Grind that also work with and interview Grammy Award winning artists like Lecrae.

I’m also thankful that according to Spotify for artists my music has been played in multiple countries such as: Mexico, Japan, Australia and Germany to name a few.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Absolutely! I learned that life is so frail and unpredictable and the only sure thing we can count on is God and His word. When I lost my great uncle Rip during the pandemic it was hard on me because due to quarantine his senior living space wouldn’t allow visitors so I couldn’t see him before he passed. Then because of gathering limitations we had to have his funeral on zoom. This was such a challenging time that without my faith I wouldn’t have had anything to hold onto as everything else in my world shifted.

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