Christian Rapper Shares New Hope In Christ Through New CD Jahai Baruti once suffered from an identity crisis and felt he had no hope - but not any more. He remembers all too well what life was like for him before Jesus Christ captured and transformed his heart, and it wasn't pleasant. The 23-year-old Christian rapper from Richmond, CA, was once an angry rebel with a lost cause who danced closely with the Devil, buying into the lies of what he thought could bring him meaning in life. While growing up in the San Francisco Bay area city of Richmond, he proudly paraded an “in-your-face” thug mentality to everyone with whom he came into contact. That lifestyle quickly steered Jahai into the fast lane on the road to Hell through numerous altercations with family, suspensions from school for fighting, a stint in juvenile hall, empty sexual encounters and various illegal activities, especially in the drug scene both as a dealer and a user. “I got into a lot of trouble with my identity,” said the mild-mannered yet personable California State University, Chico student. “I then got into partying, using and selling drugs. I was smoking w**d all day, every day. I made big money selling coc*ine, Ecstasy, and w**d. I was depressed all the time. I kept constantly looking over my shoulder. I was robbed once of $2,000 of drug money I had collected. I would cry myself to sleep because I couldn't believe what I had become. I hated waking up in the mornings. I felt lost.” At age 18, Jahai brought his destructive lifestyle with him to Chico when he and and a friend moved to the Northern California college town in order to get away from his parents, he said. It was through Jahai's girlfriend's radical conversion to Christianity that turned the young thug's head. He wanted to know more about the joy and the peace that captured her heart. “My girlfriend at the time attended a Christian study group at Remedy Life Church in Chico and over time I could see the joy that came over her,” he said. “I got curious about it. She once missed the bus to take her to her Friday night Bible study. She called me and started crying because she was about to miss her Bible study. Here was this girl who at one time smoked more than me and drank more than me. We even had sold pills together. I told myself that I have to check this out. I picked her up with the intent of just dropping her off at this Bible study. But something came over me to attend. I didn't have anything going for me at the moment. I figured what could I lose by taking this step? Instead of dropping her off, I went in and I immediately felt at home. People connected with me. It was the first time I felt comfortable opening myself up.” For Jahai, that seemingly chance encounter at that Bible study planted seeds in him in which a relationship with Jesus Christ as his Savior blossomed. And Jahai has never been the same since. “I never really heard of God or ever felt God until that evening,” he said. “My family is Muslim and I never really connected with Islam. I just went through the rituals. I was always skeptical about the Islamic faith. I would always get into fights at school for being Muslim. I wound up attending a Seventh Day Adventist high school. I went to chapel services there, read a little of the Bible, and heard about God. But that night at my girlfriend's Bible study, God became real for me.” Jahai wanted to live for Christ and to spread the word about His amazing love to other young people. God provided the mostly unlikely yet perfect vehicle for the young convert's evangelistic vision: rap music. “I never had any musical talent before I came to Christ,” Jahai said. “I was actually the laughing stock of my friends when I tried to rap. It was an absolute miracle that I began my rapping career. It came straight from God. I never knew what I could do, but I trusted Him with my life. When I added God to the equation of my life, the result is what I am now.” Although secular rap music portrays an outwardly arrogant posture and is noted for it's often vulgar and violent lyrics, Jahai has composed some refreshingly new and wholesome lyrics that magnify the grace and love of Christ backed by music with an infectious attitude. In fact, Jahai has dusted off some traditional rap and hip-hop pieces by adding his words to them to create a mix tape CD which has now been released called A New Hope, Volume 1. A New Hope focuses on the ever-fresh hope that is found only in Christ and not in the fruitless pleasures or material things of this world. Jahai's lyrics hold back no punches. They are raw yet truthful, capturing with brutal frankness the essence of a life once lived in spiritual depravity, now transformed by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. Jahai's material is like a voice of one crying in wilderness – ever reminding his listeners of the uncertainty of life and the warning that to prolong accepting Christ's atoning death by faith for our sins means an eternity of separation and horrors worse than anything this life can ever imagine. Highlights of the seventeen-track album include “One Life,”recalling Christ's one life on earth in which He chose to live so He could die for us. His death is the real deal that never tarnishes or fades. Humans have one life as well, and in response to Christ's amazing love, they can live it for Him. “24 Hours,” (with Johnathan Carter, Jahai's cousin, and Saeed Coleman, Jahai's best friend) is a sobering reminder that there are only 24 hours in a day and that Christ will return soon, so we are called to be ready for that blessed event. Until that moment in history comes, the trio challenges their listeners with this question: So how are we to live? “Death Around the Corna',” (with Mark Johnson) encourages listeners that even though death is everywhere, even “around the corna',” Christ is stronger than death and that He came to take away our fears. To contact Jahai or for information about booking him for your gathering and to obtain a free copy of A New Hope, Volume 1, or A New Hope, Volume 2 call (510) 734-9055, or e-mail him at jbcali05@yahoo.com , or log on to his MySpace page at: www.myspace.com/jahai05 *********************************************************