By Zion Jenkins –
As long as he was a rapper, it was ok to use drugs.
“As a child, I looked up to Motley Crew and thought that to be a heroin addict if you were a rock star was okay, it didn’t mean you’re a scumbag, it was a good thing,” says Aussie rapper 360. “As a child, I romanticized sex, drugs and rock & roll lifestyle.”
Today, 360 has pulled a 180. He used to mock Jesus in his music. Now he’s born again and almost completely free of drugs.
Matt Colwell wanted to play basketball professionally but keratoconus made vision in one eye look like it’s underwater, so bball got dunked.
Plan B was music, and he threw himself into hip hop with everything – hard work, manifesting, vision boards – and he exceeded his wildest dreams. Songs and albums went platinum, invitations and collabs rolled in, fame shot internationally. He reveled in hedonism.
But lasting happiness eluded him.
“I always thought that being famous and having a lot of money and having a lot of sex and stuff like that would be awesome,” he admits on a Deliverance Down Under video. “I thought that would be I’d be set for life, I’d be happy.
“It felt good to succeed, but after about a week it was like, okay now I’ve got to
get more of that,” he says. “It was trying to fill some sort of void that never could be filled.”
From age 21 to 34, while his bangers were shaking international audiences, he was being swept away by agonizing drug addiction.
“I was heading down this really really dark path that if I didn’t pull myself up I was 100% going
to die,” he surmises soberly.
He tried 4 months of rehab – without God. He abused the meds that were supposed to supplant the heroin, Oxycontin, benzos and other substances. When he got out, he was drinking listerine for its alcohol content. He sought doctors’ help.
A friend became born-again, and because he was close, Matt listened to him. He had always cast shade on religion in his music.
“I was very, very anti-religious. I was extremely cynical about it, very, very critical of it. Yeah, I judged it quite harshly,” he says. “Looking back, I really had no
idea what I was talking about.
He began attending and accepted Jesus one day. “I was bawling my eyes out,” he remembers. “Over the next few months, the walls started to come down. I was starting to really encounter God and understand who Jesus was.”
He found City on a Hills church in Chadstone, Melbourne, and doesn’t miss a Sunday. He’s down to two medications that supplant addiction (progress!).
He’s run into blowback for talking about Jesus. He understands; that’s the way he used to be also.
“My last album will be the whole message will be pointing people towards Jesus,” Matt says.
Other celebrities who have come to Christ: Daddy Yankee, Newsboys frontman John James on his restoration
