KINGSTON, Jamaica – Christopher Tate, the pastor for late dancehall artiste Robert Lee Malcolm, popularly known as Gully Bop, says the entertainer struggled badly with health and financial problems before his untimely death, and said people should take the deejay’s passing as a warning sign to seek repentance.

A seemingly annoyed Tate told Observer Online that his phone has been blowing up as people seek confirmation on the deejay’s passing.

“”The man sick and ah s—t up self, everybody ah call say can you confirm that Gully Bop is dead? Stop worry about Gully Bop, it is finished. Everybody wanted to see him dead, they don’t look at the earthquake and wake up and change dem dutty ways,” Prophet Tate, of the Christ in Chris Healing and Deliverance ministries, told Observer Online.

“He was in the hospital for two weeks and it is confirmed that he passed away, he never had to die this way in pain.”

Gully Bop had reportedly struggled with health issues in recent months. The ‘Body Specialist’ deejay had reportedly undergone a surgery at the Kingston Public Hospital in 2022. A year later, he reportedly had a kidney transplant. Prophet Tate said Gully Bop realised that he had a kidney problem a few years ago while he was doing some gardening.

“He was trying to pull up a root, and he dropped and licked his back and he realised he had a kidney problem and he had a kidney surgery and he had the bag at his side. Things were so bad with him at one point that he couldn’t afford pampers so we stepped in to help him,” he said.

Adding that despite rumours that the deceased had issues with substance abuse, Prophet Tate said Gully Bop chose to give away his fortune.

“Gully Bop give weh everything, they said he was a cokehead, but he couldn’t coke out everything…he gave away everything,” he said.

Pastor Tate revealed that Gully Bop had been baptised ‘at an associate’s church’ before his death.

“We put him through the surgery – with the help of evangelist Erma Savage – we had to buy a new kidney for him. After that, he got baptised earlier this year, but he is still struggling, a new convert, it is not easy for him to 100 per cent to get there, but the Lord bring me to him to complete him,” Prophet Tate said in an earlier interview.

Gully Bop rose to fame when a video of him freestyling on YouTube made the rounds on social media. From there, the “Dem Nuh Bad Like Me” artist was able to secure a deal with Claims Records and even toured internationally. His fame swept the island, and he was featured at STING 2014. He eventually split ways with Clains Records after they said he had become disrespectful.

After that, Bop reportedly encountered a litany of problems which included charges of domestic abuse and robbery. Former girlfriend and manager A’mari DJ Mona Lisa accused him of “running her down with a butcher knife” and stealing her passport and United States Green Card. Gully Bop was released on US$1,200 bail when he appeared in the Brooklyn Criminal Court. The charges were later dropped.

There were also rumours that he had lost all the money he had accumulated during his music career and had retuned to the streets at one point.

– Claude Mills