Top Gospel Artist Caught Drinking: A-Star’s Open Letter To Pulse!

On Friday, Pulse sensationally carried an epose in which it claimed to have photos of top gospel rapper A-Star catching a couple of pints -Barcadi Breezers to be exact.

And A-Star out to has come to clear the air in a wordy statement posted to facebook. Let him clear the air himself…

“What a day this has been!! Yaani… whattttt!! So I’ve gotten a bunch of emails, fb inbox, tweets, texts and calls about this whole pulse story. The question everyone has been asking is, “is it true??”. So, I wasn’t gonna reply, talked to a few people and they told me to let it die. However, I’ve decided to dish out my story… seeing how pulse are doing such a great social media marketing job!!

A few years back I remember being heart broken as my favorite rapper decided he was hanging his gospel boots and going secular. I was shocked, hurt, confused and scared!! DNG is the reason I ended up at Kijiji Records. His debut album “My Testimony” was the first local gospel album I bought, loved and played on repeat like whoa!! So you can imagine how crushed I was to hear he was exiting. It made me self reflect about this industry. You see in my view unlike many other gospel artists DNG actually understood his calling. He understood what God expected of him and his purpose as a gospel musician. In my view his exit was a sober one of, “Eiiishh!! This weight is tooo much… siwezi mek!! I’m out!! Cheers God. I’m still saved and still believe that Christ is Lord lakini this calling is toooo big!! Cheers”. [Please note this is my own assumption of why DNG quit and not fact]. However what this did in my own life was make me think about my own calling as a gospel musician. My purpose and life path!! This led to the birth of a few many songs, quoted are a few lyrics :-

“Bamboo, DNG/ Me na ogopa/ Am I next in line juu nimeokoka…” – I Believe In You feat. Pete Odera

“The cross is too heavy the world on my shoulders/ Expectation high the youth are getting older/ The calling too great dear Great I AM/ Am I the right person/ Can I really do this?/ Will I walk the shadow of death and get through it?/” – Taxi Driver feat. Kanjii

“Painful as this sounds I’m God’s plan B/ Plan A said NO he was a fallen disciple… the calling I accept my answer is YES Lord…” – Taxi Driver feat. Kanjii

“Chupa chini no more sippin yaani nimequit/ But every time I hear that sound “tinggg”/ I wanna sip…” – Jibu Kilio

…plus many other songs all taking about the acceptance of the calling, the fear of walking the path, and the faith and believe that as I step out into the water and do what God has called me to do that I will not sink. And so I joined this gospel music industry and God’s being faithful. I live off it. I started with nothing and for many years nothing came, but I’ve seen God elevate me. I’ve seen God grow me, and I’ve seen God open doors that I didn’t know existed. e.g. Groove MC, Get Lifted Show, travel around Africa etc. I’ve seen God deliver me from things that were holding me back from being a fearless influencer of society, seen him restore relationships, and use me to do His Will.

However I’ve also been reminded that success doesn’t mean that your issues in life disappear. For me what the “success” did was hide/bury my issues from the world and church. And yet my vulnerability and realness in my first album “The Light” was what made the album such a success. As people listened to my music, they didn’t think what a great rapper… ehh ehh!! What they did was connect with the realness [coz my issues are not unique to yours] and all I did was be “The Light that leads to THE LIGHT”, I connected people to Christ. As success and elevation came, I started playing “religion”. I stopped with the realness and started speaking what I knew Christians wanted to hear. Quoting scriptures from the head and not from the heart. But God is a God of progression so while Obama was being inaugurated me and 5 other pals were in a room listening to God speak. Boom!! The birth of Chit Chat!!

Keep reading… I know it’s a tab bit long but it’s going somewhere… promise 🙂

Chit Chat stretched the living daylights out of me spiritually. I was the “leader” of this Hip Pop group that was going around to High Schools singing “Soo Sweet Buzzin Juu Kaboo”. The church didn’t get it and thought that we had lost it and were after fame and money. What money?? hehehe!! They didn’t understand what “I La La Like It” had to do with salvation. Chit Chat moved us from routine religion of church on Sunday, quoting scripture randomly to serious prayer and FAITH!! We knew we had heard God clearly and thus the birth of Chit Chat but we also knew that a lot of people wouldn’t get it, so we needed to SEE THE FRUITS!! Basically we needed to see young kids GETTING SAVED!! We needed to see artists being mentored and their character changing for the better. We did this for 1 full year!!

Then came a scandal that changed my life forever!! Tony of MOG!! I remember ironically it was DNG who broke this story and as soon as I saw his status update I called Tony and assured him all will be well. However this scandal hit me hard!! It made me realize that the only difference with Tony and myself was that I hadn’t been publicly “busted”. That I too have my own struggles under the mat. I too am human and fall and sin every single day of my life. Some of these sins are “big” others “small” according to man’s eyes however all are sin in God’s eyes!! I decided it was time to come clean and write an album about what I was CURRENTLY going through at the time. Stop acting like everything in life is ok and just clean-out my closet, sweep the dirt from under the rag, pull out the X-Files. What hell this was!! Yaani this album broke me things!! I was talking about issues and hurts that I was currently going through, with the hope that God would deliver me!! Here are but a few lyrics :-

“She said she loves me/ Then she said she loves me a lot/ She said she loves me just a little now she loves me not…”  Big Boys Don’t Cry feat. Javen

“Alone in the room/ TV on/ Magazine under the mattress/ Actress/ Undress right hand looking for access/ Love scene begins/ Eyes fixed on screen…” – Answer My Call feat. Brian King

“Dear Lord please help me out/ It’s like I’m in a pit and I can’t get out/ I’ve been trying to quit he won’t let out/ It’s like I’m in a fight with the devil he knocked me out…” Songa feat. Kerah

On my sophomore album there’s a song called “Public Apology”. I wrote this song to “Mulika” (expose) my undercover hidden deeds. Verse one in particular is dedicated to God coz He had been seeing all my lies and struggles when the rest of the world was giving me a nice pat on the back and saying, “good Christian”.

“Lord please forgive me for the times that I did/ The times that I said that I did but I didn’t/ Hustling for pay cheques I did it for my gain/ Blinded by the success I did it for the fame…” – Public Apology feat. Allan Aaron

In this verse there’s a line that I specifically put about this “alcohol” issue that the pulse has crucified me for. and the line is “Lord please forgive me for doing it over/ and over and over and over again/ I keep saying I’ll stop I keep lying it’s over/ But deep down, don’t wanna put it down no way/ Off the narrow path I’m cruising on the highway living life reckless I’m doing things my way/ I need to slow down, so I go down on both knees/ This is my public apology…”

So to end this long essay, I’m gonna set the record straight. Media ain’t my friend, especially Pulse. I mean why should they be?? If Cleaning The Airwaves is successful it means that pulse peeps may be out of a job coz all they thrive on is sleaze? The story on pulse was the truth [I was at the Barcardi gig, the pics don’t lie]… however, it’s wasn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth!! C’mon would the story have sounded sweet if they said a sober Astar left, drove his friend home, and went to sleep?? That’s not the info that sells magazines.

Finally my parting shot. I’m really glad Jesus found me (grace) and I accepted Him into my life. I’ve seen him change me from the dude who used to go to the Barn [same venue where the pics were taken] and wake up not remembering half the night to the dude who left the club sober and able to drive in the rain. I’ve seen him break chains and fix issues in my life. I still have a farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr long way to go but how cool is it that I know Christ is right there walking with me. I still have mad issues to deal with but he is working on me… don’t trip, He ain’t through with me yet. I’m most definitely going to make a whole lot of mistakes, some privately, some publicly but such is this Christian walk. To all “fans/friends” out there… never have I asked you to follow me. My job is just to lead you to Christ for He alone is the way, the truth and the life!! Richie aka Astar is a flawed, sometimes cursing, issues full, HUMAN BEING!! Hawezi mekkkkk!!

To those who don’t know Christ, please forgive us if we’ve made you think that this thing is all about rules and regulations. About don’t club, don’t have sex, don’t smoke weed, don’t drink, don’t listen to secular music… don’t, don’t and more don’ts! The only time it’s do’s is when it’s Tithe!! That’s not what this Christian walk is about… it’s about walking with Christ and being real with Him. He will then guide you, tell you what to do and give you the strength to do it!! TRY HIM!!! If i’ve offended, hurt, let down anyone… i’m sorry, I apologize for being human.”

Over to you Pulse, you claim to have photos of him with the bottle in hand? Pictures or shorrup that your mouth! Mechi uno!