Seni’s story | Jesus and rap music

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:25-26)

“I’ve always loved rap music. We used to sit at parties in Brisbane, and they’d play a beat, and we’d all start rhyming. It’s big in Polynesia. My family is Tongan by background and I’m one of seven children. To be Tongan is to be Christian. I grew up with my family singing hymns and learning memory verses.

But I moved away from Christianity at high school. I stopped thinking Jesus was important. I moved out of home, and I was partying a lot, at night clubs, doing drugs. I wanted to live life for myself. But I was miserable.

In 2020, I ended up moving back home because I needed a place to stay. Every night, my mum and sisters would meet to sing and pray. They’d read the Bible out loud – one chapter each of the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Gospels, the epistles. It seemed like they were taking it much more seriously than before, and I saw a difference in the way they were treating each other. I knew there was something there. By then, I had flunked out of university. I had chased everything I wanted to chase but it didn’t satisfy. Every night, I could hear them singing and praying for me.

One night, I sat up. I couldn’t deny that God was doing something in my family life. I decided to turn to him and pray. I trusted that he heard me, and he forgave me. Over the next week, I saw a transformation in me – the way I saw things. It was so sudden – a 360 degree turn around! I knew I was forgiven because of what Jesus did for me.

The first thing I did, as a Christian, was I started writing my own rap music. It just came out. Before that, I never wrote my own rap songs. I just sang the secular songs with the others – all about drugs and sex and murder. Back then, I didn’t have anything to write about myself. But after I became a Christian, straight away I started writing about what God was doing in my life. Within months, I released my own song. “I never would have made it. Too caught up. I was impatient. When you said trust, I was afraid. I never would have made it…”

It was August 2020, and the song really took off, in the mainstream secular market. It was all about second chances in Jesus. The response was amazing. There was massive Pacific Island support. The song was really big in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne. It was around the covid time and Polynesian rap music was huge. I kept writing about what God was doing in my

life. I got a producer and released more songs. Then I got invited by churches to share my testimony and my songs. Through that, it became an outreach. I did shows in Sydney (in a carpark in Mount Druitt) and in Brisbane and all over the place. Youth in Brisbane tend to love basketball, shoes and free haircuts. So, we did that at the park. We approached local barbers and asked them if they wanted to be part of the outreach. Then we spent days in the park or on the streets, inviting the kids to the rap concert. We’d put on the concert and before every song, I’d tell people why I wrote it. I’ve seen so many people come to Christ! We do an altar call every time.

Two years after I got saved, I went to Bible College. I wanted to understand the Bible more, and that’s where I am now. I remember writing an assignment about Ezekiel 36:25-26, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

That’s what God has done in me! That’s what being born again is! God promised it hundreds of years before Jesus! It was a revelation to me. That’s what God is wanting to do in all of us, to give us a whole new heart. Of course, after I got saved, I told my mum, “I get it now!”

Seni’s story is part of the Faith Stories series, compiled by Naomi Reed.

Visit Koorong to purchase Naomi’s Faith Stories book, Every Moment, Everywhere: https://koorong.com/everymoment