With Cassidy's third album B.A.R.S. released today (November 6th), the North Philadelphia rapper wraps up his three-part series with HipHopDX, about the three bars in his own life that he’s had to overcome. After the two previous entries on the murder charge and car accident respectively, Cassidy, for the first time, spoke about a childhood fire that nearly cost he and his mother their lives, and the clarity its given him.

When I was real, real young, l was a baby…I was living overtop of a store in North Philadelphia. My mom went downstairs for me, to buy something, while I slept in the crib. While I was asleep in the crib the whole house caught on fire.

When my mom came back upstairs, the house was so ablaze, that my mom could not even walk inside. She dropped on the floor, coughing. That’s when I crawled up to my mom, screaming her name. To this day, my mom doesn’t understand how I got out of the crib, on the floor, to crawl to the door, to get to her. I don’t even know. I was a baby, I barely remember the situation. I was about one year old. Nobody else was in the house with me at the time, my mom was the only person there. I don’t know what it was that I needed, probably diapers or something, but I lived right overtop of the store, in a two-story building. She just went downstairs, which is when the whole upstairs caught on fire.

When we talk about it today, my mom says she was devastated. It’s been so long. I made it through it; she made it through it, so she’s looking at it like a good thing, not as a depressing thing. That was a special situation for me to make it through. I’m pretty sure she’s just happy that I survived and made it through it; I’m pretty sure she learned a lot. She learned not to step out of the house with a baby in unattended.

The funny thing is, as I’ve gotten older, I have a fascination with fire. I like fire. When I was growing up, I always used to play with fire. I’d light trash cans on fire; I just liked to see things burn. I was amazed by fire as a concept. I’m not scared of fire today because I was in a fire as a youth, just like I’m not scared of driving trucks or riding in a car because of my nearly-fatal accident. Things happen. You could just trip and fall and crack your head open, but does that mean you should be scared of walking? Things just happen. I don’t really fear nothing but God.

I don’t look at myself who was destined to outlive the odds. I don’t feel like there are any odds. I feel like everything is just meant to happen. At certain times, you’ve got to go through certain things to become the person that you need to be. Maybe if I never went through those things, I know I wouldn’t be the person I am now. I might be need to be the person I am now for certain reasons. I’ve got God inside of me. I believe God looks out for everybody, not just me. I’m not just a special person with an angel over my shoulder, I believe I have certain work to do for God while I’m here. That’s why He allows me to go through certain things, and how He saves me from certain things, so I can become the person I am, so I can do whatever God put me on this earth to do. Understand, everybody has different jobs. I don’t believe I’m special; He’s not watching out for me more than He’s watching out for the next person. I just believe that this is this is the way my life was supposed to go.