“From Thug Life to Christ:” Rapper Saved in Jail Cell Preaches Gospel to 1M Followers
Holy Gabbana once garnered a following for his crime-ridden life, now he’s sharing how Christ has set him free
We have been praying for revival in our nation for decades…and over the last few years, you can truly see that the Spirit is moving across our culture and world.
John Robert Hill Jr., known as Holy Gabanna on the internet, once garnered five million followers online for turning his crime-ridden youth into a social media brand, as CBN News explains.
Gabanna would end up in prison for the reckless robbery, vandalism, and riotous behavior that had led to his fame…and addicted to drugs as he battled the effects of childhood abuse.
"I didn't blow up with a team. I didn't blow up with a manager. I blew up from the streets," he recently explained on the God Behind Bars podcast.
But it was in a prison cell in 2018 that a bold cellmate would ask him the question that changed his life forever — “Do you believe in Jesus?”
“For that man to ask me, do I believe in Jesus? That lets me know that God was always thinking about me. Anybody else could have been my cellmate," Gabanna says.
"In jail, I encountered Jesus," he told the podcast. "A lot of people they don't understand that God speaks through people... in that moment God reached me through my cellmate."
"When I went to jail, Jesus wasn't on my mind, because to be honest. I wasn't thinking about Jesus when I went to jail,” he says. “You may not be thinking about Jesus, but he is thinking about you. But God was literally setting me up so I could have an encounter with him."
He would go on to have a profound experience in the same cell, where he started singing a Gospel song to himself and began crying like a child before being overcome with joy and laughter he’d never felt or experienced before.
His faithful cellmate explained he’d just had an encounter with the Holy Spirit!
Gabbana is now crime- and drug-free and uses his experience to share the Gospel in prisons, schools, juvenile facilities, and colleges
"If people can see me and then see how God is able to restore and flip things around. I'm not ashamed to share my failures with people because sharing my failures with somebody could really encourage them. It's never too late to make a turnaround," he says.
God is in the business of taking what is broken and mending it with miracles that tell of His glory as well as His love for mankind. Every single person is made in God’s image and has been given the opportunity to live free from bondage and sin in Christ.
Don’t ever forget just what a powerful impact you can make when you remind people that God loves them and is thinking about them and has a divine plan for their life!