Skilla Baby was in the middle of an interview on “The Breakfast Club” Tuesday morning when his phone went off. It wasn’t a call.
“It’s time for the prayer, too,” he said. “My prayer time.”
Charlamagne tha God offered to stop.
“You want to stop and pray? We can.”
“Yeah, come on. You’re gonna do it. Let’s do it. You’re gonna pray, or you want us to pray?”
“I want y’all to do it,” Skilla Baby said.
So the show stopped. The hosts got out of their chairs, gathered in a circle in the middle of the studio and held hands, and co-host Loren LoRosa prayed out loud.
“Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together today. I thank you for Skilla Baby and his journey and his voice. I pray that you cover him. You continue to lead him down a path of leadership, but also down a path of vulnerability as he places his life story out for other people to see, to know, to understand, but also to follow in the right way.”
“I also pray that you comfort him in moments where we don’t even understand what comfort is, where he may not understand what comfort is, but that you sit right there next to him. You speak to him. You hold him in the ways that he is needed.”
“I pray no spirit of confusion, no spirit of fear, and I just pray that you continue to show favor in his life. I know that he is here for a reason. I know that he is still here with us for a reason.”
In May of last year, Skilla Baby’s SUV was hit with more than 25 rounds in a drive-by in Redford Township, just outside Detroit. He was struck three times and needed multiple surgeries.
He has said since that the shooting was not the hard part. Getting shot was “easy,” he told Complex, compared to the mental health battles he has had most of his life. Gospel singer Erica Campbell and her church, he has said, walked him through a dark stretch afterward.
The album he came on the show to promote is called The Price of Fame.
“Beautiful prayer, Loren,” Charlamagne said when it was over. “Skilla Baby, keep growing, my brother.”