I’ve heard Slim sing more times than I can count. I knew the records, the voice and what happened when the right 112 song came through the speakers and an entire room suddenly remembered every word.

What I didn’t know was the house that voice came from.

When I caught up with Slim at Chicago’s 360 Day Party for THE HYPE MAGAZINE, I wasn’t interested in walking through a résumé everybody can Google. I wanted the part before the world knew the distinctive lead voice of 112.

So I asked him about an accomplishment most fans might never know he was proud of.

“My mom’s an evangelist. Dad was a police officer. We couldn’t have cable. We couldn’t listen to secular music.”

Now, that got me.

Slim from 112 grew up in a house where secular music wasn’t allowed.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. But instead of pointing to an award, a hit record or a stage somewhere around the world, Slim took me back to the beginning.

“I think the biggest accomplishment was just getting into it,” he said.

Getting in.

That answer says everything when you know where he started.

BEFORE THE WORLD KNEW THE VOICE

Slim remembers reading about places he had never been, then watching music take him to those same places.

Think about that.

Before the passport stamps, there were pages. Before millions knew his voice, there was a kid inside a house with rules who had no idea how far that voice would carry him.

Maybe that’s why Slim still speaks about the journey with gratitude. Success didn’t erase the distance.

He remembers it.

THE SAUCE WAS VULNERABILITY

As an R&B artist myself, I had to ask Slim something I’ve thought about for years.

Why does the R&B of the ’90s and early 2000s still hit the way it does?

We sample it. Flip it. Revisit it. New generations keep finding it.

What was the sauce?

Slim gave me one word.

“Vulnerability.”

He talked about men being protectors and providers, kings and lions in the world, while still being able to take the armor off when it came to love.

That was in the music.

Those men could need somebody. Miss somebody. Admit they were wrong. Ask somebody to stay.

They didn’t have to pretend not to care.

Maybe we spend too much time trying to recreate the sound of that era when part of what we actually miss is its honesty.

We believed them.

And people still know when somebody means it.

THE ONE RECORD HE’D SAVE

Before Slim headed to the stage, I made the question harder.

Take away the entire 112 catalog.

One song survives.

What goes in the time capsule?

“Cupid.”

Then Slim told me something that changed the way I heard the answer.

There had been resistance to the record because “Cupid” didn’t sound like the typical R&B song people expected.

Today, that almost sounds impossible.

We know what “Cupid” became. But before history made it a classic, it was simply different.

They pushed it anyway.

Slim remembered the record crossing into soft-rock stations and even country stations. The song went places an R&B record by 112 wasn’t necessarily expected to go.

The record that didn’t completely fit became the record he would save if everything else disappeared.

That’ll preach.

Because sometimes different doesn’t mean wrong.

Sometimes the room just isn’t big enough yet.

KEEP PUSHING

As we wrapped, Slim said, “You got to keep pushing, keep going forward because when you’re in alignment with your destiny, it’s going to happen no matter what.”

By then, it didn’t sound like advice.

It sounded like his life.

A kid who couldn’t listen to secular music became the lead voice of 112. A boy who read about the world eventually traveled it. A song that didn’t fit the formula crossed boundaries and became the one he would save.

Then Slim went to take the stage.

And I was left thinking about the first thing he told me.

Of everything this journey gave him, he was proud that he got the chance to enter it at all.

He got in.

Everything we know came after.