NAME:
Christian Paul
ABOUT
At only 22, Christian Paul is an old soul with wisdom beyond his years. He’s as apt to quote Maxwell, the godfather of neo-soul, as he is to reference revered theologian Charles Spurgeon. He’s inspired by the poetry of old hymns as much as he’s influenced by the elements of rhythm and blues. Blazing a trail few have traveled, he doesn’t fit the typical mold; and perhaps that’s what makes him such a compelling new act. Whether he’s writing about his relationship with God, a breakup or the surprising cards life has dealt him, Christian wants his music to sound something like the calm after the storm. After all, in a short time, he’s weathered the fickle tempest of the music business and come out on the other side a more confident, more innovative and more fearless artist.
Regardless of the winding journey he took to get here, it seems Christian was born to create. He was a young kid growing up in rural Alabama when he watched an “MTV Unplugged” session with Jodeci for the first time. The ’90s R&B quartet performed Stevie Wonder’s classic, “Lately,” and Christian was smitten. From then on, he wanted to sing like K-Ci and JoJo. “I mean, I was just so taken aback that a person could sing like that,” he says of the popular outfit that consisted of two sets of brothers. “I was so captivated, and I think that definitely lit a fire in me to really try and attain the level of vocal excellence that these guys have.”
It was Christian’s dad — a hip-hop dancer in high school — who first introduced him to Jodeci and other R&B legends, as well as a steady diet of Michael Jackson, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Creed and Nirvana. Moreover, his older brother was in a Weezer cover band, and frontman Rivers Cuomo quickly became Christian’s idol.
“My life was consumed with a love for music at a very young age,” he shares. “One could argue I was a music lover from the womb.”
After a family friend taught him a few basic drum patterns, Christian was playing percussion at five. His parents enrolled him in piano lessons, but he soon gave the ivory keys up in favor of learning to play a guitar his brother gifted him at age 10. He began to teach himself chord structures by watching YouTube videos and quickly picked up the bass as well. By 12, he was constantly singing.
“I started treating my voice as my main instrument probably around 13,” Christian says. “I still have a really long way to go, but that’s when I decided I wanted to be as proficient of a vocalist as I could be.”
While a brief stint in a now defunct boyband gave him his first taste of the spotlight, his incredible falsetto led to a solo record deal at 19. With his sights set on becoming the next Justin Timberlake or Robin Thicke, Christian embarked on his first radio tour — a 12-week nationwide promotional jaunt that put him in front of pop music’s most influential gatekeepers. He doesn’t recall what city he was in, but he does remember going back to his hotel room one night during the promo tour, lying down in bed, and scrolling though YouTube. That’s when he came across a video in his Recommended List of a pastor “faithfully preaching the Gospel.”
Although he had been attending a church prior to this, he says this was the first time he felt like he heard genuine truth that led to authentic life change. “At some point, Christ began to produce in my life what I couldn’t produce in myself,” Christian shares. “That gave me confidence that my God had saved me. He had forgiven me and had called me His own.”
Feeling like his new values were at odds with his fast-rising road to pop stardom, he made the difficult decision to step away from his mainstream label deal, assuming this was likely the demise of his music career. “When God transformed my life, I wanted to live a life of integrity and uprightness. I wanted to be pleasing to Him, and that came at a cost,” Christian offers. “It required me to begin shedding practices and patterns that I had developed as an unbeliever, and some of those had implications on my music.”
At a crossroads, the young singer/songwriter decided to press pause for 10 days. He hid out in a tiny house in his parents’ backyard. He didn’t answer any phone calls or texts. He simply secluded himself in that space and sought God’s direction. When the 10 days were up, he launched an indefinite musical hiatus that would last for more than a year. Content to use his musical gifts to serve his local church, he came to terms with the fact that he would need to find a different vocation, though he continued writing songs in that tiny house.
Christian was now something of an anomaly. He possessed a silky vocal that fit R&B like a glove, but his newfound faith pointed him in a lyrical direction that defied modern pop music. He doubted he’d ever have another opportunity to explore his musical gifts on a larger scale simply because he was forging a lane that had never been charted before.
At the encouragement of trusted advisors and a new management team, however, Christian agreed to take a couple meetings in Nashville with labels who were intrigued by the instrument he had been carefully honing since he was a teenager — his soulful voice. “I was only supposed to be there for two or three days,” he says, “but I ended up staying in Nashville for nearly two months.”
An interested label set up a series of co-writes for him that resulted in an unexpected new deal with Capitol Christian Music Group, the details of which could only have been divinely orchestrated. While it didn’t happen as quickly as he would have preferred, the timing ended up being perfect. “It’s absolutely remarkable to see God’s sovereign hand over it all. That year and three months that I stepped away from music was absolutely integral to me being ready to move out to Nashville,” he reflects. “Had God granted me a record deal when I thought I was ready, I would’ve squandered the opportunity. I needed that extra time to really experience discipleship and biblical shepherding and the dynamics of a healthy local church. I needed that for the sake of my soul, for the sake of my growth and maturity, which is never-ending in this life. I have so much more growing up to do.”
Personal, spiritual and artistic growth might require a lifetime, but for now, Christian is opening a new, more mature chapter of his story that reveals a soulful singer, multi-instrumentalist and skilled lyricist hitting his stride and discovering his own voice. The music he’s making is a mix of the R&B he was raised on, the pop excellence he once aspired to, and the faith he’s deciphering. He’s currently working on a slate of original songs in LA with some of mainstream pop’s most esteemed producers. Meanwhile, his first single, “Won’t Rain Anymore,” has quietly ushered in his next era, previewing what’s to come with its textured sonics, effortless vocals and an undeniably positive message. Zane Lowe premiered the rainbow-after-the-rain track, produced by Frequency (Eminem, Rihanna), on Apple Music, giving listeners a glimpse into Christian’s fresh musical direction — a merger of bold pop strokes and thoughtful lyricism that include thinly veiled references to the hope he’s found in giving his life over to something bigger than himself.
“My pursuit of musical excellence was always a genuine God-given thing, a God-given bent. He just designed me this way, to have these inclinations toward musical things,” he explains. “But the call is ultimately submission. It’s a yielding of one’s life to Christ, to be so persuaded by a truth that you conform your very life to it — that’s faith, and that’s what I’m committed to.”
ExpandRegardless of the winding journey he took to get here, it seems Christian was born to create. He was a young kid growing up in rural Alabama when he watched an “MTV Unplugged” session with Jodeci for the first time. The ’90s R&B quartet performed Stevie Wonder’s classic, “Lately,” and Christian was smitten. From then on, he wanted to sing like K-Ci and JoJo. “I mean, I was just so taken aback that a person could sing like that,” he says of the popular outfit that consisted of two sets of brothers. “I was so captivated, and I think that definitely lit a fire in me to really try and attain the level of vocal excellence that these guys have.”
It was Christian’s dad — a hip-hop dancer in high school — who first introduced him to Jodeci and other R&B legends, as well as a steady diet of Michael Jackson, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Creed and Nirvana. Moreover, his older brother was in a Weezer cover band, and frontman Rivers Cuomo quickly became Christian’s idol.
“My life was consumed with a love for music at a very young age,” he shares. “One could argue I was a music lover from the womb.”
After a family friend taught him a few basic drum patterns, Christian was playing percussion at five. His parents enrolled him in piano lessons, but he soon gave the ivory keys up in favor of learning to play a guitar his brother gifted him at age 10. He began to teach himself chord structures by watching YouTube videos and quickly picked up the bass as well. By 12, he was constantly singing.
“I started treating my voice as my main instrument probably around 13,” Christian says. “I still have a really long way to go, but that’s when I decided I wanted to be as proficient of a vocalist as I could be.”
While a brief stint in a now defunct boyband gave him his first taste of the spotlight, his incredible falsetto led to a solo record deal at 19. With his sights set on becoming the next Justin Timberlake or Robin Thicke, Christian embarked on his first radio tour — a 12-week nationwide promotional jaunt that put him in front of pop music’s most influential gatekeepers. He doesn’t recall what city he was in, but he does remember going back to his hotel room one night during the promo tour, lying down in bed, and scrolling though YouTube. That’s when he came across a video in his Recommended List of a pastor “faithfully preaching the Gospel.”
Although he had been attending a church prior to this, he says this was the first time he felt like he heard genuine truth that led to authentic life change. “At some point, Christ began to produce in my life what I couldn’t produce in myself,” Christian shares. “That gave me confidence that my God had saved me. He had forgiven me and had called me His own.”
Feeling like his new values were at odds with his fast-rising road to pop stardom, he made the difficult decision to step away from his mainstream label deal, assuming this was likely the demise of his music career. “When God transformed my life, I wanted to live a life of integrity and uprightness. I wanted to be pleasing to Him, and that came at a cost,” Christian offers. “It required me to begin shedding practices and patterns that I had developed as an unbeliever, and some of those had implications on my music.”
At a crossroads, the young singer/songwriter decided to press pause for 10 days. He hid out in a tiny house in his parents’ backyard. He didn’t answer any phone calls or texts. He simply secluded himself in that space and sought God’s direction. When the 10 days were up, he launched an indefinite musical hiatus that would last for more than a year. Content to use his musical gifts to serve his local church, he came to terms with the fact that he would need to find a different vocation, though he continued writing songs in that tiny house.
Christian was now something of an anomaly. He possessed a silky vocal that fit R&B like a glove, but his newfound faith pointed him in a lyrical direction that defied modern pop music. He doubted he’d ever have another opportunity to explore his musical gifts on a larger scale simply because he was forging a lane that had never been charted before.
At the encouragement of trusted advisors and a new management team, however, Christian agreed to take a couple meetings in Nashville with labels who were intrigued by the instrument he had been carefully honing since he was a teenager — his soulful voice. “I was only supposed to be there for two or three days,” he says, “but I ended up staying in Nashville for nearly two months.”
An interested label set up a series of co-writes for him that resulted in an unexpected new deal with Capitol Christian Music Group, the details of which could only have been divinely orchestrated. While it didn’t happen as quickly as he would have preferred, the timing ended up being perfect. “It’s absolutely remarkable to see God’s sovereign hand over it all. That year and three months that I stepped away from music was absolutely integral to me being ready to move out to Nashville,” he reflects. “Had God granted me a record deal when I thought I was ready, I would’ve squandered the opportunity. I needed that extra time to really experience discipleship and biblical shepherding and the dynamics of a healthy local church. I needed that for the sake of my soul, for the sake of my growth and maturity, which is never-ending in this life. I have so much more growing up to do.”
Personal, spiritual and artistic growth might require a lifetime, but for now, Christian is opening a new, more mature chapter of his story that reveals a soulful singer, multi-instrumentalist and skilled lyricist hitting his stride and discovering his own voice. The music he’s making is a mix of the R&B he was raised on, the pop excellence he once aspired to, and the faith he’s deciphering. He’s currently working on a slate of original songs in LA with some of mainstream pop’s most esteemed producers. Meanwhile, his first single, “Won’t Rain Anymore,” has quietly ushered in his next era, previewing what’s to come with its textured sonics, effortless vocals and an undeniably positive message. Zane Lowe premiered the rainbow-after-the-rain track, produced by Frequency (Eminem, Rihanna), on Apple Music, giving listeners a glimpse into Christian’s fresh musical direction — a merger of bold pop strokes and thoughtful lyricism that include thinly veiled references to the hope he’s found in giving his life over to something bigger than himself.
“My pursuit of musical excellence was always a genuine God-given thing, a God-given bent. He just designed me this way, to have these inclinations toward musical things,” he explains. “But the call is ultimately submission. It’s a yielding of one’s life to Christ, to be so persuaded by a truth that you conform your very life to it — that’s faith, and that’s what I’m committed to.”
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