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Luca Brasi 4 album cover by Kevin Gates & YoungBoy Never Broke Again

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2025 · From the album Luca Brasi 4

I Am

by Kevin Gates & YoungBoy Never Broke Again

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02:35 Runtime

The reading

A gospel-inflected testimony where survival becomes gratitude, and the scars from past pain are reframed as evidence of divine rescue

02 · Interpretation

I Am: Kevin Gates and YoungBoy Turn Scars Into Testimony

E Editorial Desk

Kevin Gates has always kept a spiritual thread running through his catalog, but 'I Am,' tucked into 2025's Luca Brasi 4, drops the streetwise framing almost entirely. There are no bars about hustle, women, or paranoia here. What remains is a straight-up praise song built around a single idea: the damage a person carries is not something to hide but something to be grateful for, because it is the map that led them to God.

The opening lines set the perspective firmly in the aftermath. The narrator wakes to a new sunrise and looks back "from the other side," seeing his life now with "open eyes." That phrasing is important. This is not a song written in the middle of the storm; it is written from a vantage point after survival, which is why the tone is calm rather than desperate. The imagery of dark water and deep pain arrives immediately, but it is met with a refusal to bargain them away. He would not trade the suffering, because the suffering is what did the work.

The hook makes the theology explicit. Gratitude is not aimed at the scars themselves but at what the scars reveal: God's heart, God's character, God's story to be told through a broken life. The line about wounds becoming "a story you'll use" flips the usual logic of trauma. Instead of pain as something private to be healed and forgotten, pain becomes public testimony, material for ministry. This is a very specific strand of Black American Christian tradition, where the testimony of a person who has been through prison, addiction, violence, or grief is considered more credible than the testimony of someone who has not.

The second verse pivots from past to present. The narrator now stands "in confidence," leaning on faithfulness that is not his own. The declaration that he is "not who I was before" and "don't have to fear anymore" is the conversion moment stated plainly. There is no metaphor to unpack. The song is describing a person who has decided that fear was a posture he no longer needs to hold.

The bridge tightens the focus onto the crucifixion itself. "In your hands, in your feet, I found my victory" is a direct reference to the wounds of Christ; the pronouns shift so that the singer is now thankful for God's scars, not just his own. This is the song's central turn: the human wounds and the divine wounds are placed in the same frame, and the human ones only make sense in light of the divine ones. It is a compact bit of theology delivered without a sermon.

Context on the album and the pairing

Luca Brasi 4 is the fourth entry in a mixtape series Gates began in 2013, and by this stage of his career he has been open about being a practicing Muslim while still drawing freely from Christian imagery in his music. YoungBoy Never Broke Again, who spent long stretches of the early 2020s in legal trouble and house arrest, has similarly leaned into religious material on recent releases. Pairing the two on a worship cut, rather than a trap record, tracks with where both artists have publicly gestured in recent years: less bravado, more reckoning.

The production and delivery lean closer to contemporary gospel than to Southern rap, with sung vocals dominating and no real verse-chorus rap structure. That is a choice. For an audience that has followed either artist through years of harder material, hearing them harmonize about deliverance is a statement in itself.

Why it lands

'I Am' works because it does not try to be clever. It states its case, repeats its hook, and trusts the sincerity of the performance to carry it. Whether a listener shares the faith or not, the underlying claim, that you can look back at the worst parts of your life and be grateful they happened, is one of the oldest consolations available to a person, and hearing it sung by two artists whose public lives have included very real darkness gives it weight it would not have in another mouth.

Themes catalogued

faith gratitude survival redemption testimony

03 · Lyrics

"I Am"

Waking up to a new sunrise

Looking back from the other side

I can see now with open eyes

Darkest water and deepest pain

I wouldn't trade it for anything

'Cause my brokenness brought me to you

And these wounds are a story you'll use

So I'm thankful for the scars

'Cause without them I wouldn't know your heart

And I know they'll always tell of who you are

So forever I am thankful for the scars

Now I'm standing in confidence

With the strength of your faithfulness

And I'm not who I was before

No, I don't have to fear anymore

So I'm thankful for the scars

'Cause without them I wouldn't know your heart

And I know they'll always tell of who you are

So forever I am thankful for the scars

I can see, I can see

How you delivered me

In your hands, in your feet

I found my victory

I'm thankful for your scars

'Cause without them I wouldn't know your heart

And with my life, I'll tell of who you are

So forever I am thankful

I'm thankful for the scars

'Cause without them I wouldn't know your heart

And I know they'll always tell of who you are

So forever I am thankful for the scars

So forever I am thankful for the scars

Lyrics via Google. Copyright belongs to rights holders.

04 · FAQ

Frequently asked

What does 'I Am' by Kevin Gates and YoungBoy mean?
It is a worship-style song about being grateful for past suffering because that suffering led the narrator to God. The scars in the lyrics stand for wounds from a hard life, and the song reframes them as evidence of deliverance rather than damage to hide.
Why does the song say 'I'm thankful for your scars' instead of 'my scars'?
The bridge shifts to address Jesus directly, referencing the wounds in his hands and feet. That line ties the narrator's own scars to the crucifixion, suggesting that his personal victory only makes sense because of the sacrificial wounds he is thanking God for.
Is 'I Am' a gospel song or a rap song?
Musically it sits much closer to contemporary gospel than to rap. There are no traditional verses of rapping; both artists sing, the structure follows a hymn-like verse and chorus pattern, and the subject matter is entirely devotional.
How does 'I Am' fit on the Luca Brasi 4 album?
Luca Brasi 4 is the latest installment in Kevin Gates' long-running mixtape series, and the Luca Brasi tapes have historically mixed street narratives with introspective and spiritual cuts. 'I Am' sits on the introspective end, functioning as a moment of testimony within a project that covers a wider emotional range.
What does 'darkest water and deepest pain' refer to in the song?
The phrase is not tied to a specific event in the lyrics; it works as a general image for the lowest points in the narrator's life. What matters in context is the next line, where he refuses to trade that pain away because it is what brought him to faith.
Why did Kevin Gates and YoungBoy Never Broke Again collaborate on a religious song?
Both artists have publicly incorporated faith and reflection into their recent work after years of legal trouble and personal loss. Whatever their individual traditions, teaming up on a track about deliverance fits a broader shift in both catalogs toward music about survival rather than confrontation.
What is the meaning of 'I'm not who I was before' in 'I Am'?
It is a plain statement of conversion or transformation. The narrator is claiming that faith has changed him at a fundamental level, which is why the next line follows logically: he no longer has to carry fear, because the person who needed that fear no longer exists.
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