Alexander V. Hepburn, also known as I Am Stacs, S.T.A.C.S—which stands for "I Am Simply Telling All Christ Saves"—is a Bahamian creative, author, songwriter, recording artist, mental health advocate, and ministry leader. Through his music, writing, teaching, and ministry, he inspires transformed hearts, renewed minds, and lives devoted to Christ.

Alexander promotes Mental Health Music, the integration of faith based doctrine with mental wellness.

He is a 2024 Bahamian Gospel Industry honoree, holds an Associate Degree in Biblical Studies from North Carolina Theological Seminary, and is a Certified Youth Leader in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, graduating from the National Youth Leaders Certification Program.

He is joyfully married to Jade Leandrea Hepburn, and together they are raising their son, Asher Alexander Hepburn.

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Praise God for you, Alexander.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in Nassau, Bahamas, man.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

How did you come to meet Jesus?

I would probably say about 16 years ago, I was sitting in my bedroom.

And during this time of my life, I was hanging out with some people.

I later discovered that these people probably were not the people to be hanging around.

And one day we were just walking and a group of guys came over to us to rob us.

A gentleman walked up to me.

By God's grace, this was not a physical thing.

It was an armed robbery.

And it just worked out where the guys actually ended up getting caught.

And it was a court case.

Everything evolved into a court case.

And my father being a police, my thought was always, wow, if my dad finds out that I'm involved in something like this, this probably is not going to be a good look.

I was about 19 at the time.

And the court case, for some reason, it was miraculously thrown out.

So when I went to the court, the people there were like, you have no idea what you're talking about.

That court case isn't in our system.

And I thought, wow, I went home.

And one of the first things I felt was, this isn't me.

I didn't have a relationship with God at the time.

But being involved in something like that, I'm like, this just isn't me.

This isn't me at all.

And for whatever reason, I'm sitting in my bedroom.

I felt empty.

And I said, God, if you are real, here I am.

And I found it so interesting that I would go from, I don't want to be in a situation where I'm involved with the court.

Why not just go into, I'm going to stay to myself.

I'm going to party with less people.

I'm going to live how I want to live.

I'm just going to do it in a way where it doesn't involve being around persons or company that can cause me possibly be involved in an armed robbery.

Someone coming to rob me, let me just get the right company.

It immediately went to God.

If you are here, if you are real, here I am.

And I started seeing signs, physical signs that God was answering my prayers.

So I started attending Bible study prayer meeting and Sunday service with my grandmother.

And I started reading the Bible and all of the scriptures that she would quote around the house.

I would run to her like, Grammy, you remember that scripture that you said?

I just read it and I got baptized and I've been walking with God ever since.

So it all began with that armed robbery.

Well, it wasn't say, I wouldn't say it was an armed robbery.

Maybe the guys had something on them.

I don't know.

But that moment for me was, I don't want that kind of company.

God, where are you?

How did those two get together?

I have no idea.

But also looking back at it, a gentleman, I won't say his full name.

I would just say Mr. Dean.

He was a summer student at the school, at a job that I had a few years ago.

And he walked over to my work desk, introduced himself and then said, you're going to give your life to the Lord.

And days after that, I started having convictions I never felt.

So being in that room saying, God, I don't want this kind of company.

I don't want a life where my name is in the courtroom.

And then my grandmother going to church on a Sunday.

And then that summer student walking over to my desk, looking me in the face and saying, my name is so and so.

And you're going to give your life to the Lord.

And following that conviction after conviction about things I never used to feel conviction about.

And here we are 16 years later.

It's crazy.

So, you know, one of the things I've seen in stories is the beginning being an indicator of what your journey is.

So that proclamation being made or that prophecy being made, have you seen that in your life as a switch around where you're doing that to others?

So now you really don't know or see or always see the harvest of your words.

But I see where people can come to me and say, hey, you said so and so, and it happened or, hey, you prophesied and this happened.

So you asking that question really brought me back to the fact that I've seen it throughout my life.

Seed and harvest.

Yeah, seed and harvest.

So you talked about your grandmother.

Is she still around?

No, my grandmother passed in 2019.

And I literally just remembered that.

So she passed a year before I got engaged.

So she missed all the good stuff.

Yeah.

But she did the work that was necessary for the good stuff to be the good stuff.

Yeah, to be the good stuff I would imagine.

I felt like she always would say, hey, we're going to the church at the end of the corner.

Hey, we're going to church.

Hey, we're going to church.

And I was so used to her not following through with that.

I got accustomed to her saying it.

But man, one day, there was a smell of strong body oil, body perfume.

And I woke up and I thought, oh, this Sunday is going to be different.

My grandmother is going to church today.

And yeah, she played a huge part in my journey.

So yeah.

Did your father ever find out that the situation happened?

Well, he knows now.

So, all right.

So young man receiving Christ.

And when did things turn around to you being the person who decides, hey, yeah, I want to do ministry?

Since I was a kid, we had like certain generations had, I think, like certain iconic figures.

So we've got an era that had Michael Jackson, an era that had Tupac, and an era that had Biggie, you know, and the era that had Michael Jordan.

And for me, we grew up in the era of Little Bow Wow.

Many know him now as Shad Moss.

This is when he first came on the scene.

He had the braids, he had the bandana.

And he was our, if you were a rapper or a songwriter or a young kid, he was our Tupac.

Because he was like something I think the world had never seen before.

So when he came on the scene, I just started rapping.

I wanted to grow my hair.

I wanted cornrows.

I wanted braids.

And I was writing music at the time.

And from primary school to junior school to high school, freestyling.

People, somebody introduced me to Lil Wayne.

You know, Lil Wayne doesn't write his music.

He just says it on the top of his head.

And I got into freestyling.

I'm making music, recording on my friend's phone, selling it, giving out CDs.

And when I graduated high school, which was 2009, I got saved in 2010.

And gave that to the Lord.

He blessed it.

And for about six years, I had a very cool, popular Christian rap group.

I did that.

I was in that group from 2010 to 2016.

So from 2017 to now, I've been on a solo journey.

So by God's grace, I've been able to stay relevant within our local gospel community.

So I've literally grown up in front of a lot of people there.

So I've always had a thing for music.

I would say that God sanctified it when I got saved.

So for 16 years, I've been on Bahamian radio.

I've been at Bahamian events.

I'm just grateful to still be in the conversation of Bahamian gospel music.

So Christian rap, and mental health music, and music.

You know, I have a song with persons with disabilities.

I have a kids' children's rap song.

So really just started this conversation of Jesus and therapy in the music.

So yeah, about 16 years now.

Imagine you're listening to this five years from today, right?

You're listening to this conversation.

This is message in a bottle.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

Don't question why certain opportunities come your way.

It isn't for you to investigate.

But it is for you to understand that if God called me to this particular thing, He is there with me.

My pastor says that the fact that you're called means you're qualified.

So I would tell future me, stop investigating God-ordained opportunities.

And just know that if He sent it to you, He's there with you.

All right.

Before we leave, is there anything else you'd like to share?

As believers or followers of Christ, it is essential that we stay rooted in the love of Christ.

We live in a time, somebody asked me, Hey, you know, our church called a seven day of prayer.

And following that, you know, we lost, I think about 10 people in a plane crash, traveling to one of our family islands.

The crime is getting even more out of hand.

How is it that the things that we're praying to God about, we're seeing the opposite?

And I, so I gave them the answer, like a man of God, his name is Pastor Stewart.

He says, I do not know.

I do not know why when we pray for certain things and we ask God, Hey, deal with the crime and it gets worse.

Hey God, deal with the pain in this country.

We just had a bunch of people lose their lives in a car crash not too long ago.

National news.

God, where are you?

We're praying against these stuff and it's happening.

And sometimes it's the enemy and we have to, you know, tell him where he needs to go and read him his rights.

But the more dark it gets, the more light you become.

I say that if you were 50 volts in the last season, you got to be 250.

When we see tragedy, we become more light.

And what drives us to become more light?

Our love for him.

I think the ongoing issue with us as Christians is we attend church, but we don't grow in Christ.

The same way with my wife, we talk every day.

As much as we remember, we hug every day.

We are affectionate with one another.

We communicate, we build relationship intentionally.

So there are certain things that my wife does not like.

I'm not perfect, but I do my best out of love to not do those things that hurt her.

It's amazing how we come to God.

We don't study.

We don't pray continually.

We don't invite him throughout our day.

We don't build relationship.

And then when life happens, God, where are you?

This is ridiculous.

This doesn't make any sense.

We do all the things to him that we don't normally do in human relationships.

And we leave, we pull away from him.

And I made the argument that many people don't get God because they don't get love.

So my closing encouragements would be build relationship with him.

The same way you put an effort to build a relationship with a human, build a relationship with God.

It is your love for God that keeps you.

When tragedy happens, why are you so firm?

I'm broken.

I'm crying, but I'm firm because of my love for him.

Yes, you have a degree in theology and Christian education, but do you know him intimately?

Yes, you know the Bible from front to back, but do you know him intimately?

It is the love for God that sustains us when this war gets hard.

So yes, you grew up in church, but learn how to grow up in Christ.

Amen.