How Kem overcame homelessness and addiction to become a star

GOD found Kem sleeping on the ground near a building on the Detroit River.

The Motown singing star was homeless at the time--in the grips of a drug and alcohol addiction that kept him on the streets, in shelters and estranged from his family for roughly four years. He had been trying, he says now, to get back into a treatment center. But to be sure of getting a bed, you had to go every day. He had been out of the center for a week, and was down for the count.

"[God] was waiting. He was waiting on me," says Kem, in the green room of Renaissance Unity, his home church in Warren, Mich. "I was sleeping near where they make the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, down on the river. There was no flash of light or anything--I was just tired and I didn't know how to fix it."

In other stages of Kem's recovery, he'd had a plan to get his life together. But this time, he was at rock bottom and knew that he needed help. Although reluctant to discuss his recovery in depth, Kem says that at this point he gave up trying to do everything himself, and sought help through a program he declines to name.

"On that particular day, I realized that I was not living the life that I wanted to live," says the entertainer, who won't reveal his age. "I'd always had these high hopes and expectations of what I wanted out of my life, and I was no where near achieving those."

This was the start of a journey from dope and despair at Mack and Third avenues to soulful songs in sold-out venues across the country. With his critically acclaimed debut CD, Kemistry, and a five-disc deal with Motown Records, the Detroit resident is getting airplay and accolades reminiscent of Motown acts of old.

The 10 songs on the CD, which he wrote, arranged and produced, are at times intensely personal and spiritual, unlike many of the songs you hear on the radio today. The first track, "Matter of Time," is an autobiographical tale of struggle and redemption.

At a time when so many artists rely on sequencers and drum machines to create a full "band" sound, Kem's album uses live musicians. "That's the key to the magic of this record," says saxophonist David McMurray, musical director for Kem's band. "I think he has something really unique."

Born in Nashville, and raised with his three younger sisters in Southfield, Mich., a Detroit suburb, Kem has always been interested in music. One day in middle school, he sang a George Benson-like version of "On Broadway" and his classmates applauded and shouted. That was, Kem says, the first time he realized he could sing.

All through high school, he maintained an interest in music--Michael Jackson, Prince. He also found a friend in Brian O'Neal, a pianist who would eventually become his best friend and who now tours in Kem's band. O'Neal spent his lunch breaks in the band room, "and Kem would come in and just watch me, and I started teaching him a couple of things," O'Neal says. "But after high school, he went in one direction and I went the other."

The direction Kem followed was not one you'd expect from a man who says he had a lot of "good memories" of childhood, never wanted for anything and was raised in a "professional, middle-class family." How did he get from a house in the 'burbs to a run-down apartment building across the street from the projects?

"I left my parents' home when I was 19," Kem says. "And I left as a teenager who was lost, depressed, insecure, full of fear and trying to mask all of that with alcohol and drugs."

He stayed with friends, flopped around the neighborhood, and ended up homeless. He says he started out "uptown," in suburban shelters, where they brought him clothes and made sure he ate well. He ended up at the Detroit Rescue Mission downtown at Mack and Third avenues--across from the projects and in the shadow of the tall office buildings.

"That was near the end of that era of my life," Kem says. "[The longer I was homeless], the worse it got."

Some people battling an addiction will try to put as much space as possible between themselves and their habit. Kem could have tried to make it anywhere. Instead of running away, he chose to stay in the Motor City and fight.

"Why would I want to be successful anyplace else but at home? This will always be home for me," Kem says. "There's no shame associated with that [homelessness and addiction] for me, because I've transcended that"

Kem's recovery, what he calls an "act of self-preservation," led him to renew his faith and rekindled his passion for music. Being clean and sober brought several changes into his life. While he is vague about the timeline and details, Kem held down a few jobs to pay the bills, and started singing again. He was reunited with his family, and says that his parents are now very pleased with their "No. 1 son." Perhaps the biggest change in his life, though, was the birth of his daughter, Troi Alexandria Owens, who is now a soccer-playing 8-year-old.

Things were finally falling into place for the singer, who had a job as a waiter at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, Mich., but still had a "passion to create."