Devon 'Ziggy Soul' Beckford. - Contributed

Andre Jebbinson, Staff Reporter

The first line of Devon 'Ziggy Soul' Beckford's biography says his conversion to Christianity is nothing but "twisted fate" after spending decades as a secular reggae artiste. What exactly does that mean? Ziggy said he is not quite sure, but it is still the best decision he has ever made.

As a young man he left Montego Bay for Kingston to be closer to his idol Bob Marley and hoped to accomplish some of what Marley had accomplished. Things were not as he had anticipated.

"I thought this was the right move to make as a young man trying to make it. It was quite different when I moved here, because I thought it was going to be a little Motown," Ziggy Soul said.

He later found out he had to work hard in order to make it, but he was prepared for the work. Soon, he was climbing his way to the top and attracted the attention of the Wailing Souls. They invited him to join their group. Before that though, Ziggy Soul burst on to the scene with his first group, Earth Disciples.

Excuses

"People were starting to look at me as the next Bob Marley," he said. But in 1997, after an unrelenting Pastor David Keane invited Ziggy Soul to Family Church on the Rock, the secular world's hold on him was nearing the end.

"He invited me and I didn't want to go. I started to make excuses and I told him that I had 60 children. He said he would send two Coaster buses to pick us up," Ziggy said.

The buses arrived the following Sunday and Ziggy and all 60 children piled up in them and were off to church. Ziggy still went home as Rasta-minded as he was when he first when into church. It was not until the following Wednesday, when he went to a baptism class, that he decided to give up his old ways.

Now that he is a converted man, he is doing things in his own time and space. He is now less of a performer and more of a missionary. Though the presentation of the Gospel is taking many shapes and forms these days, he said there are those who have outrightly rejected him because he still wears his dreadlocks. That does not mean he will be shaving his head.

"If I cut it I will be pleasing them. When God looks at me he does not see my hair, he sees my heart. God will tell me if I am to cut if off and I haven't heard that," he said.

Now he is choosing to suffer the affliction doing God's will rather than enjoy the other pleasures of this world. Ziggy's wife currently lives in the U.S. and he, too, could be there, but he decided to remain in Trench Town to operate his children's ministry there.

Ziggy said he has "learned how to love. If a kid is dirty, I didn't want then near me. Now those are the children I am around. I have recognised what it is to love".

Ziggy's second album, Genesis, is scheduled for release at next month's Fun In The Son.