After spending 14 years in prison; seven of those on life and the other seven years on death row, one would think that this man would be extremely sober and very quite by now, but no, not G'Love Gemann!
Ghana Music.com, your authoritative news source on Ghanaian music caught up with this Ghanaian musician whose rise to fame in the late 80's and early 90's was meteoric and asked him about how he felt to have escaped the death penalty. Listen to The Blood by Gemann
Now preferring to be called G'Love Gemann, the musician and death penalty survivor who's now turned preacher, attributes his escape from death by hanging to his encounter with Jesus Christ during his years spent on death row in respective prisons in Ghana.
Gemann, whose parents are Amoo and Augusta Agyemang, started working seriously at developing his talents for music and dance into a career when in 1986 he recorded his first album in the United kingdom.
This debut album was called BMW; Be-My-Wife. Since that first album, the musician has had a series of other successful releases which included hit albums like Hip Hop The Jungle, The Dancing Man, which was released in 1992 in the Netherlands, and God is Love which was recorded in the Nsawam Medium security prison in 2003 and released in Ghana.
Prior to all this musical feats, in the year 1984, G'Love Gemann made some inroads in the professional dance arena when he won the Michael Jackson Look Alike/ Dance Contest in New York and became the first and only Ghanaian to attain this. Another feather was added to his cap when he became the first person to ever win the national dance champion in Ghana in the year 1980.
He then went on to win the Ghana National Dance Championships two more consecutive times in 1981 and 1982.
At this time, the prolific Dancer/Musician was making plans to delve into the movie making industry... little did he know that this new venture was never to be. This was because on the 9th of January 1995 G'Love Gemann was sentenced to death by hanging after an Accra High court found him guilty of shooting to death a taxi driver.
The musician was arguing with the driver over payment after the said driver had ferried a friend of Gemann to the musician's house.
The life of this young artiste came crashing down before his own eyes as this wasn't the future he had envisaged. After almost a decade and half behind bars and living with the shadow of death continually hanging over his head. The musician turned preacher walked out of the jaws of death in January 9, 2009. Jail brings out both the best and worst of the human nature and G'Love Gemann is no exception to this rule of life.
Seven years came and went and death never knocked on Gemann's door, it was as though time had forgotten about him or luck kept him in its good books. In his own words however, his experience had nothing to do with luck, rather it was all part of God's plan for his life. Prison is where the musician met God and it also became the venue where he first started sharing and preaching Christ to his fellow inmates.
For some people, prison is not a place to stay overly positive minded, yet Gemann's case was the absolute opposite. For him, it was during his early days in prison that he met Jesus Christ and decided to devote the remainder of his life to the pursuit of a stronger relationship with God.
Prior to doing jail time, Gemann maintains he did not have a solid relationship with God until after prison. During his hard and trying 14 years of incarceration, the preacher-musician started propagating the gospel of Christ within the confines of his prison walls, he always beamed with light and life based on a revelation he received in prison in which God assured him of his release from confinement at an appointed time.
Knowledge of this revelation from God with the promise of his release from prison is what kept him going on with hope and stronger faith. He had always known since he encountered God in prison that he was going to walk out of his unfortunate confinement.
The fact that he didn't know when and how it was going to happen didn't prevent him from continually exercising his faith in God. To him, everyday in jail was a preparation towards his release, no matter how undetermined that day was, it was always expected.
It is therefore no surprise that the date 01/09/2009 is one which is engrained in the mind of Gemann for the simple reason being that, it was on this day that he first stepped out of prison as a truly free man!
The pastor who has been on preaching assignments with Presbyterian Churches in Ghana is currently preaching in Ghanaian churches across the USA while he also feverishly works on his new album to be released in May of 2011 in the USA.
The album which is called G-14 is metaphorical of the 14 years the musician spent in Jail; it also has 14 tracks which is quite symbolic as well. All the songs on the G-14 album were written while on death row, in the musician's opinion, this yet to be released album is his greatest work yet.
Gemann is now single and looking to get married again provided he finds a good woman. Pastor G'Love Gemann also has daughter who turned twenty in 2011 and two brothers of which one is also a preacher. Gemann presently lives with his sister in Texas USA and is also the CEO of a Christian internet radio station based in Texas called Gloveradio.com
