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Felicitas - Redemption

Vision from God propels new album
‘Redemption’ from Italian artist Felicitas

MILAN, ITALY – Felicitas Ngenuie Zama is a modern-day miracle. Born in the northwest region of Cameroon, in the city of Bamenda, she is the last child of a family of nine children. At an early age she found an aptitude for languages, and today is plurilingual. Her brilliance has shined through academic pursuits, bringing her to places all over Africa and Europe – and today she lives in Italy where she is continuing her university education.

All of those things are impressive, but the miracle that makes her life truly special didn’t happen until a little over a year ago. The born-again Christian who said her life changed drastically as a 19-year-old who had an encounter with Christ, found a deep calling one night in October 2017 when she was given a vision in the middle of the night.

“Most times when I pray is around midnight because the silence is perfect and I get to concentrate on what I’m doing,” she said. “And on this particular night I had a vision. I saw myself on stage, and it was like a trance. I was singing and I had a big audience in front of me and it was a platform for me to tell people about Jesus. I have always loved to sing, but I didn’t know or have any ideas about making music a career. Singing makes me happy, but it has always been a way to distract myself from my studies when I want to take a break. But from that day forward, every night I would get new melodies coming to my spirit and new lyrics were flowing as if someone were reading them to me somewhere. I never had to search for new words, they just came to me. I would wake up early morning at around 2 a.m. filled with a new song, and I’d have to get up and write it down. He wants me to preach somehow through my songs.”

That’s how her new album, “Redemption,” was born. She’d wake up with a new song in her heart, spend time praying about it and confirming with God that this is what He wanted, and then she’d put in the work to create the song. She said it’s a project that she knows will connect deeply with people in ways that debunks the “taboo” that’s often associated with the idea of living a Christian lifestyle.

“I wanted to give something to any girl of any race to connect with,” she said. “The songs on here are what I’ve experienced before, but never knew what it meant at the time. It’s about difficult times I’ve had in my life, and ones I still encounter now, and how God has revealed to me that they’re challenges and temptations the devil puts in front of me to hold me back and pull me down. He doesn’t want me to climb the ladder of success and be who God wants me to be. I’ve come face-to-face with the devil in a million different ways – that’s something we deal with every day. This album is about what we can do to come out of it. We can use the Word of God to come out of difficult situations and be smarter and better and more beautiful than before.”

“Redemption” features 11 original songs from Felicitas, with one song featuring Italian rapper Peligro. It’s an album that she calls Contemporary Christian with a touch of R&B. She said she recognizes how unusual it is for an album like this to come out of a place not known for Contemporary Christian or Gospel music, but she knows that’s part of the miracle God wants to continue through this process.