Ja Rule did an interview with Minister Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, and talks about his growing up as a JW and how his mother was disfellowshipped and how now his family comes around because he's rich...I'm pasting this from the website EURWEB.com.
(Nov. 6, 2003) As you know, Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan recently sat with Ja Rule to discuss his beef with 50 Cent. Here is a transcript of that conversation that was originally broadcast via BET and several Clear Channel radio outlets.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: First, Ja, I want to welcome you to your home away from home.
JA RULE: [Laughs] Thank you, thank you.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Thank you for coming in.
JA RULE: Thanks for having me.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: And thank Irv for arranging it.
JA RULE: Yes. Yeah.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: I really, really appreciate you and how God has used you to affect so many millions of our young people. Could you tell me something about you growing up? I heard that, that you were an only child.
JA RULE: Mm-hmm.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Dad was not in the house.
JA RULE: Not in the house.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: So you were reared totally by Mom?
JA RULE: Yeah.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Tell me tell me about your young life.
JA RULE: Well, I had a, a kind of hard childhood but not crazy. See, it, it is crazy because a lot of people are not going to understand it. I grew up a Jehovah's Witness.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Ah!
JA RULE: So [Laughs] we going to get into …
MIN. FARRAKHAN: That's wonderful. Go ahead, brother.
JA RULE: [Laughs] We're going to get into how, how, you know, how I didn't, I didn't have Christmas. I didn't have birthdays. I didn't have none of that type of things that the kids enjoy as, as kids.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: And so I missed all of that. My father wasn't around. He was a womanizer. And he hit my mom. Mom. I'm putting this out there. Yeah, you know, he hit my mom. That's why I vow I'll never hit a woman. Ever, ever, ever hit a woman because I see the pain it brought my mother.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: And up to this time you are married.
JA RULE: I'm married.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: You have children.
JA RULE: I have three children.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: And you never hit your wife.
JA RULE: I never hit my wife.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Ah, that's wonderful, brother.
JA RULE: You know, I, I grew up an only child and actually I did have a sister but she died when I was five and she was younger than me. So you can imagine I, I really, you know, I didn't cry or anything, you know. Really didn't know the meaning of death.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: What did she die from?
JA RULE: Respiratory problems. Yeah.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: Couldn't breathe properly.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm. How did that affect you?
JA RULE: See, that's what I'm saying. That really didn't have an affect on me till I was older because I didn't understand it. You know, I was young. I was about four or five so, you know, my mom comes home and she tells me, "You know, your sister's not going to make it." You know, I'm really like – don't understand it. I, you know, I'm like, well, you know, where's the next toy, you know? It, it didn't register …
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: … until I was a little bit older and, and I started to understand like I don't have a sister that I, that I had that was here and I, and I could of grew up with her, whatever, whatever. So that was, that was tough on me. And, and my father, he was, he wasn't there. And it was just me and my mom and she worked two jobs trying to, you know, trying to raise me. And that was tough because she worked the 4-to-12 shift.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm.
JA RULE: So I'd come home from school and nobody's home. So now it's like on my own. So that's why I kind of feel like the streets raised me, you know, because the older guys around. We always lived around older guys. That's all that was around me. And they kind of, you know …
MIN. FARRAKHAN: How did you relate in school with your classmates and your teachers? You grew up in, in Queens?
JA RULE: In Queens. Yeah.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Yeah. Was it an all Black school?
JA RULE: My first, the first school I went to was, it was an all Black school. It was 134. I used to fight every day so they, I got thrown out. And then my mom figured it would be better if I went to, if they bused me out, you know. I know you know about the bus thing in Boston. [Laughs]
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: But they bused me on out to a White school, 172. Well, it was a little bit better for me there. I didn't have no Black friends now so I had to kind of learn how to deal with that situation, you know.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Did you fight a lot at the new school?
JA RULE: No, because there I was tougher. I was the Black kid, so they kind of looked at me as the tough kid. Even though I was small, where I used get into fights in the Black school every day because I was smaller, at the White school I was Black.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Did you feel, Ja, somewhat abandoned because Dad wasn't there and Mom had to work real hard to support you and …
JA RULE: A little bit.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: … rear you?
JA RULE: I always felt like a loner because I was by myself a lot. My grandma helped out tremendously.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: My grandmother and my grandfather, you know. The Cherrys [Phonetic]. [Laughs] Ed and Mama Cherry [Phonetic], they helped out a lot and they did a lot for me as a young, youngster but here's where that got twisted. Being a Jehovah's Witness is very strict religion. And …
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: … They got such a thing that's called you could get disfellowshipped …
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: … or disassociated …
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: … if you do something outside of what they believe.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: Now, they believe a lot, have a lot of, you know, beliefs that are just hard on kids, hard on human beings. You know? You can't hang with worldly people, meaning people who are not Jehovah's Witnesses.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: [Interposing] I understand. Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: So my mom got disfellowshipped because she liked to go out with co-workers and have a drink or two or whatever. And they found this out and disfellowshipped my mom. And like this devastated my mother because the whole congregation stopped speaking to her. And that's how they do it. You're not, no one's allowed to speak to you when you're, you're disfellowshipped. It's like you're banished.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: Not even your family.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm.
JA RULE: So now my grandmother, my grandfather, her parents, didn't speak to her, her brother, no one …
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Now, the whole family were, were Jehovah's Witness.
JA RULE: Right. They're not speaking to my mother.
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: And this, this really like made me hate the religion because I said, "Like, how could a religion tear apart a family?" And I, I didn't, I didn't involve with that. Like I don't feel that. Because now that I'm successful everybody speaks, "He's still disfellowshipped," but everybody comes around now. And, and I said, "You know what? If it took my success to bring my family back together, then so be it." I'm not going to be the one to say, "Oh, stay away now!"
MIN. FARRAKHAN: Mm-hmm.
JA RULE: Because I love to see my family together. Like that's what life is about. It's about family.