After serving time, rapper Ja Rule is now on a more spiritual path.
The artist, who had a thriving career in the early 2000s as part of the label Murder, Inc., told New York radio station Power 105.1 that he's gone from following a troubled path to seeking Christianity.
Ja Rule, born Jeffrey Atkins, served roughly two years in jail for tax evasion charges and attempted criminal possession of a weapon. After his release in 2013,
the rapper picked up a role in the movie "I'm In Love with a Church
Girl," and found himself growing interested in God as he promoted the
project at churches.
"I kind of reconnected
with God by doing the ... movie," Ja Rule told the radio station. "I
reconnected with God in a different way. I was going to all these
different churches, ... (and they) were great, but I didn't feel like
they were talking to me until I went to Hillsong right here in the
city."
As he recounts in his new memoir,
"Unruly: The Highs and Lows of Becoming a Man," Ja Rule was raised by
Jehovah's Witnesses. When his mother left the faith in his pre-teen
years, the rapper says he soured on the religion.
"The family wasn't
speaking to my mother, and I saw how much it hurt her," he recalled to
Power 105.1. "I didn't want to have anything to do with the religion at
all."
But after his release from lockup, he found himself drawn to New York City's Hillsong Church.
"You walk into this
church and it's dark in there and the disco ball is still in there and
you see the lights and you're like ... well this is different," he said.
"And then you get in
there and you start to look at everybody around you, and they look just
like you -- it really gave me the feeling that when they say come as you
are, they mean the skater kids in the back with the skateboards, like
they just came off the street coming to church. It was a different type
of crowd."
And when the church's
pastor, wearing sneakers, jeans and a T-shirt, began to preach, "I felt
like he was talking to me," Ja Rule said.
The rapper added that he
and his wife, Aisha, were "saved" at Hillsong -- meaning they professed
to be Christians -- and he's now trying to figure out how to practice
his faith while still being in his profession.
"I want to make sure I'm
doing the right thing. I don't want people to misconstrue what I'm
doing here," Ja Rule said. "I'm taking baby steps, and I want to get
closer to God. I feel it's something you should do in life."
Since his baptism, Ja Rule said that he's become friends with the church's pastor, Carl Lentz.
"I started speaking to
Carl, (saying), 'I don't know how to do this and take this, because you
know what I do for a living. I'm not going to start making gospel
records," Ja Rule said. "He told me, 'Ja, take baby steps. Walk in your
path.' "
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