Rapper-turned-minister Mason “Mase” Betha brought his verbal skills back to New York to celebrate a Brooklyn church’s lengthy tour of duty as a ministry yesterday (August 4).
The former rap star brought a message of spirituality and change to the Christian Cultural Center & Church, an African America church in Canarsie, Brooklyn, as the congregation touted 20 years in the community.
The 4,500 seat church was almost filled to capacity as people lined up outside to watch Mase preach his message.
“They put handcuffs on a man that’s dangerous to himself and everybody else – he must be restrained. You will realize you have dangerous areas in your life and you have to put the straight jacket on yourself,” Minister Mase said in front of the capacity crowd.
In a separate sermon, Mase explained his reasons for exiting the rap music industry abruptly in April of 1999.
“How [am I] handling his transition from rap superstar to minister? Many would think that it would take a lot of sacrifice. However, after a soul stirring vision from God, [where I saw] Mase leading souls to hell, the ex-rapper now returns as Pastor Mason Betha, leading souls to Christ,” he said. “As a ‘new creature,’ I was given a new shot at life.”
“One day, it was almost as if God said, ‘Let me take that blindfold off you, because you’re not even aware that your leading millions of people to hell.’ He also showed me that every time I left somewhere, that was another group who had been influenced to join me as I ‘marched to hell.’”
Some sources stated that Mase left hip-hop because of street beef in his native Harlem and the enormous effects stemming from the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G., his Bad Boy label mate.
Still, Mase, a multi-platinum selling artist, maintained that he always knew of his calling, but he ignored it for the glamour of being signed to Bad Boy during the label’s most prosperous period.
Nowadays, Mase preaches fulltime at the S.A.N.E. Ministries International (Saving A Nation Endangered in Atlanta.
The minister chronicled his life, in and outside of rap, in “Revelations: There’s a Light After the Lime.”
