English was little more than gibberish and rap a dirty word during Samuel Muyaka’s youth as the son of a traveling businessman and preacher in central Africa.
“Where I’m from, when you heard about rap, it was all about cussing and killing,” says Muyaka, now a sophomore at Baton Rouge’s tech-centric charter school Mentorship Academy. “My parents did everything they could to keep us away from it.”
Given his father’s mission, Muyaka’s first introduction to music was in the evangelical spotlight. At age 7, he began playing bongos with his older brother Honore, and they were the only instrumentalists performing in a Congolese church of 300.
Five years later, with his mother’s back problems worsening, Muyaka’s father Felix moved the entire family to the U.S. to seek better health care. After a few months in Texas, the family settled in Baton Rouge, where Felix Muyaka founded Living Together in Christ International Church.
Just 12 years old, Samuel had only ever spoken his native Swahili, and he had never heard an American rap song from start to finish. Honore Muyaka calls the upbringing he, Samuel and their brothers and sisters received in Africa “musically deprived.”
After hearing Christian rapper Dooney Da Priest’s anti-saggy jeans jam “Pull Your Pants Up,” both Samuel and Honore were hooked. More importantly, they saw a way to blend their growing interest in modern hip-hop beats with the family’s faith.
“We started bumping to that song and fell in love with rap music,” Muyaka says. “But we had to listen to it in secret. Mom doesn’t speak English, and she got mad when she heard us singing it. She thought we had joined a gang.”
After penning their own Biblically themed rap in Swahili and performing it for their mother, the boys convinced her the music they had discovered was not about embracing a negative culture but giving them a new voice with which to share their beliefs.
While Honore began rapping in local churches, Samuel struggled with the language he now commands in fast-paced rhymes. He could not speak conversational English until two years ago.
“I had to spend so many nights staying up late on the computer trying to learn English,” Muyaka says. “I spent a lot of time on the phone with friends. They probably didn’t know why I was calling so much, but I was just trying to get my English together.”
As Muyaka gained linguistic confidence, he began keeping an audio journal of poetry and ideas and exploring digital recording techniques.
“He’s the most proficient beat-maker in class,” says Alicia Collins, a multimedia teacher at Mentorship Academy. “Everyone else is always saying, ‘Sam, help me! Help me!’”
At 15, Muyaka settled on the name L.O.S. On Da Trac—L.O.S. meaning “Leader of Salvation”—and began hosting rap battles, deejaying school events, and performing in church with his brother.
“I approach rap differently, not because of the language, but because I don’t consider myself a rapper,” Muyaka says. “I consider myself a minister.”
Collins says it is his drive and enthusiasm that made his command of a new musical language so immediate.
“To see someone at his age set his sights on a goal and go out and achieve it is remarkable,” the teacher says.
Two months before his 16th birthday last year, Muyaka entered the studio with Brian Wright, a local Christian rap artist who is already making a name for himself as a hot producer at the age of 22. Together they recorded his debut album Determined in a matter of weeks.
“Samuel’s greatest talent is his ability to grind to get better,” says the producer, who records and performs as B.Wright. “I always tell him that you have to work hard to get where you want to be as an artist, and he has stepped up to the bar at a rapid pace.”
Wright says Muyaka has moved beyond a protégé to him in the process. He’s more like a little brother.
“He’s been a joy to work with,” Wright says. “What makes him such a promising artist in Christian rap is that he is actually ministering through his music instead of just writing songs.”
Though his days moving from country to country in Africa with his large family feel like a lifetime ago, Muyaka holds dear his memory of being a small child keeping the beat for those hundreds-strong Sunday-morning congregations singing Gospel hymns to the rafters.
Now Muyaka raps his own lyrics in churches and in concert halls for growing crowds, but the beat remains the same. His music, like that small drum he banged on in Congolese churches, exists only for serving the message.
“Over there, it was just bongos and I was just a kid,” Muyaka says. “Now, I have the mic, and I got to tell them what I know.”
