11/09/2026
Sam Sakala is born again 🫂
“I AM A CHRISTIAN… BUT I MAKE SECULAR MUSIC 😳 — DOPE G EXPLAINS HIMSELF
He wrote
RIG?
Gospel vs secular
On the 12th of January, 2020, a few days after I joined ZUBA as a cast member, I answered the alter call at the church I was attending making a first time public declaration of my faith. I had gotten close to God before, gradually but I had never committed fully prior to this point. My fear before was mostly around losing my ‘freedoms’.
The year prior(2019) had been a rough one for me. In that challenging time, I hit many roadblocks with the things I was trying. By September, while almost giving up, I came across a sermon on YouTube by the now controversial Mike Todd titled ‘crazy faith’ which convicted me. I started praying daily while still showing up for my tasks hoping something connects. I begged God to change my situation. I had told him “I have tried everything else but you so I will put my faith in you and see if what your word says is real”. At the time, I had been planning an album and in the months to come, I start working on it.
Anyone with any experience with God’s will and plan knows that he does things at his time and mostly not like we expect them. I put a statement out that I wasn’t taking acting gigs because the calls to audition never stop and then the people at ZUBA put a good offer on the table so I made that album take a backseat.
Come 2020, I started work but was still being on the fence with my faith even though I knew deep down the promise I had made to God. So on the 12th of January, I answered the call to follow christ.
As many believers get, my transformation was a radical one. I didn’t want anything to do with anything deemed unclean. I was curating what I watched, what I listened to, where I went, who I spent time with, what I said etc. There was only one problem, the job I just accepted was very secular and the characters I was going to play would be the total opposite of the lifestyle I had adopted. On the day I got saved, I spoke to the person who prayed for me and was guiding me on my next steps in the faith. I explained what the job I just took would require from me and I expected the same resistance we faced when we were labeled secular musicians. To my surprise, he encouraged me to go for it and started telling me about Hollywood actors who are also believers. In that year, Corona virus swooped through the whole world and the churches were shut down by March so it was me, my two months saved, my internet connection and a lot of reading working out my salvation with nobody around me except for the online connection group meeting I would join once weekly on Zoom. I found that reading my Bible and doing my own research, there were many things we had allowed in the body which were more church tradition than they were biblical fact. I also started to realize that when we read the Bible, we mostly identify with Jesus but our actions say if we lived in that time, there’s a high likelihood that we would be on the side of the Pharisees. I also found myself questioning why it felt like the only place for an artist in the body was the stage and why as an entertainer, when I was on screen doing a secular show, I would have so many people’s mothers from church know me and seemingly loving what we were producing yet if I made music which was not even vulgar at all, I would be deemed worldly.
I am yet to find answers to some of the questions above but I know that I am called to be the salt and the light of the world. I know that I am a city set on a hill which cannot be hidden and what better way to use my influence than to glorify God? I refused very early to be an entertainer exclusively for people who are already saved and actually go to the people who are far and tell them that they are seen and whatever they’re going through, Christ is the solution. To add that sometimes the situations might not even change but our hearts do and we are promised peace beyond understanding to help us weather the storms.
One thing I know for sure is that I have a lot of struggles, some of which I might take to the grave with me and the church is one of the few safe spaces I can open up about them so if I am busy playing perfect there, then I am robbed of the chance to get the help that I need.
So nowadays you will see and hear me proclaim that I am ROOTED IN GOD. No matter what wind blows on the surface and how far it may bend me, I know that as long as my rooting is in the word, I will remain sustained. It also speaks to how growth takes time, in life, in the faith and we who have matured more in the faith need to have grace for and give support to the people who are newer to the faith and are still navigating their journey. The irony with the RIG brand is how many people who don’t fit the profile by the church’s standards purchase the merch and go represent Christ in their spheres of influence. The mandate is to go make disciples of all nations and truth be told, some nations you might not agree with or them agree with you but we’re called to them and we must speak their language in order to reach them.
So today, I want to come here and loudly proclaim that I am Sam Sakala, an artist who has been transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Napita mukwayi
