Bio

LAMONT SMITH has an incredible, unusual story that signifies the hand of God truly being upon his life from birth to adulthood. Lamont was born and raised in New York City and born into the child welfare/foster care system there, due to his birth mother having various issues and being unable to keep him. Lamont got his roots and start in the Baptist church, as he resided with a strongly devout Christian foster family there at that time, up until the age of 4, when he was legally adopted by a single father. Lamont discovered his love for music and mainly his gift for singing around the early age of 5 or 6, due to his adoptive father was a musician and exposed him to various types of music like R&B, Jazz, Classical and Gospel music. Lamont and his adoptive father relocated to Cleveland, Ohio when Lamont was 8 years old and sadly two years later after they relocated, Lamont’s adoptive father passed away when he was 10 years old.

Shortly after his adoptive father passed away, Lamont went on to reside with another foster family who was biologically related to his adoptive father and it was during this time, Lamont began to take music and singing even more seriously and passionately. Lamont found a lot of comfort in music because there were many struggles he faced during his childhood and teen years, after living with different families. Lamont faced and experienced various issues like rejection, verbal/emotional/physical/sexual abuse and confusion. Lamont also dealt with some bullying as a child as well from both adults and some of his peers. However, it was also during these elementary, middle school and high school years that Lamont would join various school and gospel/church choirs which would help Lamont to improve, grow and build his skills and embrace his creativity. 

Lamont attended the Cleveland School of the Arts during most of his high school years and majored in their vocal music program. It was also during this time that Lamont joined an R&B singing group called Rated Nxt in 2002 and worked on a demo project which unfortunately was never released and the group officially disbanded in 2005. During these high school years, Lamont took major inspiration from various musical artists but mainly people like The Clark Sisters, J Moss, Kim Burrell, Smokie Norful and Tonex were the people he took his biggest inspirations from and enjoyed the most.

Shortly after work on the Rated Nxt project ended, Lamont relocated back to New York (Upstate NY area) and after some time passed, got very involved in church and ministry and decided to not only rededicate his life back to Christ but to turn down going the secular route musically. Lamont eventually grew a passion for leading worship and was appointed the first worship leader for the ministry he currently serves at daily, Radical Nation Citadel of Praise, but at that time in 2009, the ministry was known as Praise & Unity Tabernacle of Deliverance, located in Albany, NY. The ministry went through various name changes and relocated to Atlanta, GA in 2015 but Lamont has joyfully remained and is a charter member of the ministry. Lamont also serves as the pastor of music at the ministry and also as one of the associate pastors. Lamont launched a graphic design business in 2012 (Mont Does Graphics) due to finding a newfound gift for creative graphic design. Lamont was also able to graduate college in 2015 with his bachelors in psychology (major) and music (minor). Lamont does desire to return back to school soon to obtain a master’s degree. 

During his time as a worship leader down through the years, Lamont has had the opportunity to share the stage with, sing on the same program as and/or sing back up for various artists in Gospel music including people like Tyler Little (Sunday Best Contestant), Tiffany Andrews (Sunday Best Contestant), Keyondra Lockett (Gospel Recording Artist), Lillian Lloyd (Lead Singer, Ricky Dillard & New G) and Arthur Danzy (Gospel Recording Artist), to name a few. Lamont finally felt led by God and also by the push of his leader, Prophet Lahtrey Majors to finally launch out as a recording artist in 2019 and Lamont is currently working on his first EP release (not yet titled), which will be released hopefully sometime in second quarter 2020. The first single from the EP is entitled “Waiting for You” and will be released within the first quarter of 2020. Lamont does have a great desire to be a recording artist, mainly for the creativity factor of it, as he has so many creative ideas, visions and thoughts and has even embraced his somewhat newfound ability to even write songs. Ultimately however, what Lamont desires even more and realizes is most important is to first lead others into a place of praise and into a place of worship and to always remain spirit and God led in everything he does as Lamont realizes this is what will help to bless the next person and direct them towards their breakthrough. Lamont desires to constantly be filled with God’s anointing as it is only with the anointing that God can break yokes and chains of bondage. Lamont has a testimony of God’s goodness and how He brought him out of darkness and Lamont’s message everywhere he goes is that God can, God will and God IS delivering!