Minister Marion celebrates Holy Ghost-filled birthday

It was indeed a starry night on Saturday, but it had nothing to do with the constellation out in the sky.

Instead, it had everything to do with the celebrities who came out to wish Minister Marion Hall a huge, happy 57th birthday at the Conquerors Fellowship Center in Margate, Florida. Dubbed the ‘Gospel Edition – Sorry to Hurt Your Feelings’, the evening brought out the Mayor of Lauderhill Denise Grant, the Vice Mayor of Tamarac Marlon Bolton, and a host of other well-known faces in the Florida community as well as ordinary well-wishers and worshippers who came to celebrate the former top entertainer taking another trip around the sun.

THE STAR caught up with Hall the day after the event, which was her actual birthday, to check in on how she felt about being five decades in and what it meant to her to be so appreciated in this phase of her life’s journey.

“It was so good, but with the amount of people inside the building, the air conditioning couldn’t manage that amount of hot people. Quite a few members who worship online, came. A 90-year-old woman came out, as she said she was going to dress up and show out. It was just a beautiful evening. Only the AC was a problem, but we chose to have it there because I knew my church was not big enough. Halfway through the evening, they still needed more chairs for people. So yes, it was a full house, but we were not complaining as the Holy Ghost turned up and that’s all that mattered,” she said.

According to Hall, she went on stage and gave the gathering the kind of musical ministering they have come to expect.

“Remember, I don’t perform anymore; I don’t entertain. I minister to people. And those who came allowed God to use them, and it was just beautiful. When the people thought that the food was done, it wasn’t. They thought the oxtail and the curried goat were all done, but they didn’t realise that my brother had done an extra pot of both curried goat and oxtail. So when everything was back in session, that’s when they found the extra food just put to one side. That comes just like the story of the two fishes and five loaves,” she said.

Hall has come a far way from her days as the top female artiste, using the moniker Lady Saw, in the always competitive world of dancehall. For decades, she ruled the roost in a cut-throat genre of sultry lyrics and scintillating rhythms fused together to create a now iconic heroine, whose name will forever be etched in the annals of the dancehall hall of fame. Though some came before her and many followed, no single female entertainer has had as much of an impact on dancehall culture as Hall, who was known to grab the microphone at sound system shows and spit raunchy lyrics that tickled the ears of both producers and fans.

Looking back at her journey through the decades since she became famous, Hall said that while she is not ashamed of her past, she is truly blessed to be at a stage in her life when God was able to show her the best use of her talent.

“I discovered recently that I’m a worshipper, so this birthday, I am not just celebrating me, but me in Christ Jesus. I am celebrating being Holy Ghost-filled and set apart because he saw that I was special, and He kept me.”