At the corner of street life and honest living stands Thi’sl: an ex-hustler turned urban missionary. A look into his past reveals the authenticity of his gritty, in your face lyrics and God’s grace, which spared his life and gave him a clean slate to begin anew.
Travis “Thi’sl” Tyler was born in Greenwood, MS but moved to one of the worst neighborhoods in America at the age of 2. Living on the Westside of St. Louis, without a father present, his grandmother stepped in to help raise Thi’sl and his brother, while his mom constantly worked. Disaster soon followed—Thi’sl was expelled from all St. Louis public schools at 13 years old for having a weapon, his mom and other relatives got hooked on drugs and he found himself struggling just to survive. “I was a monster. I did whatever I had to do to survive,” he recalls. By the age of 18, narcotics began to consume every aspect of his existence. With his life spinning out of control, pains and hurts being drowned in a variety of drugs and an identity grounded in the streets, Thi’sl was headed for destruction
