Those who knew Gael Tunga Rutembesa as a student at University of Rwanda in Huye District, currently Huye District, know the kind of person he was.

Rutembesa, 34, is a gospel rapper whose music is inspired by his past, including his years at university as a playboy, a drug user and a drunken young man.

But the story behind his switch to gospel music is undoubtedly a lesson for everyone who lives the same life.

The rapper who uses Ga-Yell as his stage name, decided to do gospel music to share his life experience and inspire those who might be living the same life he used to live to make them change.

His story

The gospel rapper, 34, told The New Times that he regrets the time lost during his university days, before he surrendered his life to God in 2012.

 "I liked to party a lot, drink, smoke cigarettes, drugs…, weed was the only drug, and sleeping around with girls,” he narrates.

The rapper during one of his performances.

"My university years were the darkest years of my life because I was living a dark life and it was killing me inside. But now I gave it to Christ, it changed my mind, soul renewed and made clean,” he added.

Ga-Yell says nobody advised him to change. It was just a matter of time before he gave his life a new direction.

 When he finished university in 2012, he returned to Kigali to start a new life after school, got a job but kept living the same lifestyle while in University, including sleeping with girls with no intention of getting into a relationship because he thought it would spoil his fun.

One day, he got a pregnancy scare and he felt like it was over for him.

"That wasn’t my first pregnancy scare, but that time round, it was different because I thought: ‘if this girl gets pregnant, her school is going to stop for a while’. I felt like a roadblock in her life journey, on one hand, and, on the other hand, I really didn’t know how I was going to support her because I was not ready to become a father, especially not someone I was not going to marry,” he recalls.

The situation the rapper was going through reminded him that he could find the right solution through prayer, his rare habit then, as growing up, he merely attended a Catholic Church only on Easter or Christmas.

That time round, however, he went to his room when no one at home, and prayed to God.

"A wave came by and covered me from my head all the way to my toes. In one second I was in total peace and I knew that I was touched by God. Even if I doubted, I could not doubt what happened to me in a second. That moment I knew God told me ‘I forgive you but it’s time to change your life,” he said.

A week later, the girl called Ga-Yell and told him she was not pregnant and, since then, he has been spreading the word of God through music that mostly shares his life’s journey.

"I gave my life to Christ and that was when I realised that my life is for a purpose and my love for music and telling stories inspired me to share what God has done for me in my life. The main reason I do gospel music is to show people that God is real because He is working,” he said.

The journey

Before Ga-Yell switched to Gospel music, he was an underground rapper in secular music.

But after deciding to carry on his career in gospel music, things couldn’t click right away. He had to wait for some time to settle for a new life and figure out how to thrive in an industry dominated by the likes of Israel Mbonyi, Patient Bizimana and Serge Iyamuremye among others.

"The journey has been up and down. It took me long to experience new styles of music, learning about the music industry,” he said.

In the meantime, Ga-Yell took some time off to build a life with a wife he married in 2018 before returning to studio, in 2019, consistently investing his time recording songs that comprise of his debut album, ‘What You Got’, which he dropped the same year.

The 10-song album is based on Moses’ story in the Bible describing specifically, when he used to cry out to God that he wasn’t able to lead the Israelites because there were still too many miles away from Egypt to Canaan.

"God told him [Moses] to use the rod to divide the Red Sea into two parts to find a way for Israelites.  Moses was able to do so many things with that rod and for me, bringing this into today’s life, I was trying to spread the message that whatever you have and however small it is, with God, it can be used to do great things,” he said of his album.

A year after releasing the album, the rapper released a seven-song Extended Play (EP) inspired by the first lockdown last year, when all activities were halted by the Covid-19 outbreak.

 "I spent a lot of time reflecting on life and God and I started writing new songs.

I noticed that, with every song that I wrote, I kept writing ‘In Your Hands’. And it was all about leaving my life in God’s hands because, outside of them, I can have so many plans but something like a pandemic may come and stop everything that, basically, I have no control over,” he added.

So, the best place that can be, no matter what happens-good or bad, is in God’s hands and that’s how the EP came about,” he explained.

His latest songs ‘Adam Saw Eve’, which he dropped last week and ‘In Your Hands’ that came out last month are part of the seven-track EP that the rapper is recording. The singer wants to see his music spread all over the world and, on top of that, see it impacting people and showing them the way to God.