Mase reborn: rapper-turned-minister returns to his hip-hop roots

Jet, August 23, 2004 by Margena A. Christian

Just when hip-hop followers were convinced that Ma$e had retired in 1999 to follow God, he s back at the mic.

Rap fans will witness his rebirth on August 24 when he drops the CD Welcome Back. The title song samples the theme from the '70s comedy "Welcome Back Kotter" and is a classic, feel-good Ma$e cut.

"What I came back to do is give them what they need and not what they want," says Ma$e of iris return to music. "They've been getting enough of what they want. It's time to experience what they need."

His first time back in the recording studio came earlier this year while recording I Still Love You, a collaboration with rap star Nelly on his upcoming Suit CD.

Ma$e says he was approached by Nelly's camp several times about considering a cameo on the album. He was moved to consider the offer after talking with one of his "spiritual" counselors. "He began to share with me that it would be almost a robbery for people to know me for who I used to be and not allow them to see the man I've become."

This moment was right for his return because, "this is the appointed time," says Ma$e. "What is taking place is so much bigger than music. It just waits to be seen. The music is just the bridge for what I came to do."

He continues, "I'm using a charismatic way of bringing them substance without trying to knock them over the head with something. I haven't come back to preach anything. If you haven't seen me in five years, I don't need to come bringing you no message. My focus is just to make clean music and let my lifestyle be the example. A living example is always better than a spoken example."

People were surprised when P. Diddy's high-profile sidekick with the signature "slow flow" delivery walked away from it all at the height of his vast career. Harlem World, his 1997 debut album, went quadruple platinum with songs like Feels So Good, What You Want and Lookin' At Me. He wrote the late Notorious B.I.G.'s hit Crush on You and had worked with such names as Mariah Carey, Brandy, 112, Total, Busta Rhymes, Cam'ron and Brian McKnight.

But by the time his second album, Double Up, was released in 1999, Ma$e hung up his mic.

"It's like I was running away from the people who I've been called to deal with," explains Ma$e, who studied math at Clark Atlanta University after his exit. "For a while I had to be away from [rappers] and I had to have the conviction that I had and that made my conversion genuine. Now I've grown in my faith. It's like I'm able to be around them and things not shake me. I'm able to be in the midst of them and still stick to what I know."

For the last four years Ma$e has pastored the non-denominational S.A.N.E. (Saving A Nation Endangered) Church International and its evangelistic outreach ministry, Mason Betha Ministries (MBM), in Atlanta. Betha, who received an honorary doctorate of theology two years ago from St. Paul's Bible Institute in New York, will remain in the pulpit. He divides his time between ministering and music.

He penned a book, Revelations: There's A Light After The Lime, in 2001. Written along with Karen Hunter, Ma$e details his checkered past, rise to stardom and spiritual awakening.

Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, senior pastor of Great Faith Ministries International in Detroit, who mentored Ma$e following his retreat from rap, understands the performer.

"He hasn't sold out or compromised himself. He's doing what he's doing and using a strategy," says Jackson. "Some people call him a hypocrite. I feel like this: God is concerned with people and people like rap music. He can do more in the industry than away from it. Going back is allowing the influence God gave him over people to be a positive one."

Ma$e was given vision well before his days of ministering. During the late '90s, when frequenting strip clubs was among his favorite pastimes, he met a young dancer, Eve Jihan Jeffers. He told the teen she was too young to work there and asked her what she really wanted to do. She said rap. He told her to step stripping and leave because God had a plan for her.

"Sometimes people are brought into your life for a certain reason," says Eve, now a Grammy Award-winning rapper and the star of her own sitcom. "He said positive things that I hadn't gotten from other people. God works in mysterious ways. Though he didn't know me, he was the person sent to deliver the message and turn that light bulb on in my head."

The rap industry could use a positive boost and Eve believes that Ma$e could be the guy to help do that.

"I love Ma$e to death," she says. "He's one of those people who is just likable. He proved that the first time out. He has an easy-going personality and he's not bad to look at. You can tell from the music he's genuine and not a fake guy. With him coming back as a preacher and walking with God, he has to win. He's not coming out vulgar or going against the word of God. He's marching to his own beat. That is great and brave. People will respect that. It's refreshing to have somebody to listen to because he is a preacher."