Craig Mack speaks of his decision to leave New York in a documentary clip recorded weeks before his death.
Craig Mack speaks of his decision to leave New York in a documentary clip recorded weeks before his death. (ERICKPURVIS VIA VIMEO)
BY
NICOLE HENSLEY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, March 27, 2017, 9:00 AM
Craig Mack faced a fight-or-flight moment before leaving his family, rap career and demons behind in New York.
The artist behind the platinum 1994 hit “Flava In Ya Ear” was gunning to end someone’s life in 2011 but chose another path, he revealed in an interview filmed weeks before his death on March 12.
“I had a gun in my lap and I’m sitting there talking to God, saying like, ‘I don’t want to do this, but if it comes to getting ugly with somebody going to try to kill me, I’m going to have to do something first to prevent that,’” Mack said in footage shared with the Daily News.
Mack, whose memorial is Wednesday at the Faith Baptist Church in Hempstead, L.I., looked to a car radio for solace during his breakdown.
He flipped through AM stations looking for the hip hop channel he loved while contemplating whether or not to use the weapon. Instead, he found Ralph Gordon Stair — a self-proclaimed prophet — preaching on the airwaves.
“I knew that it was God talking to me because of the way it made me feel emotionally,” Mack said. “I broke down crying all over the place in the car: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I was thinking about trying to do this to somebody.’”
“It was really in my heart to kill him. I was going to do it,” Mack said.
According to Mack’s account, he called the controversial religious leader for help and found the salvation he was looking for. He flocked to the Overcomer Ministry in Walterboro, S.C., and told only a handful of friends and family of his decision. The rest of the world learned of his new home, panned by former parishioners as a cult, when a startling video of Mack denouncing his life of “wickedness” surfaced in 2012. ...