Rapper who extolled drugs and power now is a youth pastor preaching Jesus’ power
Emmanuel Gallegos used to rap to try to prove that he was better than everyone else. Now, the 26-year-old Huntington Beach resident says he raps to serve God.
“I’m preaching from my weakness. Often, nights were sleepless. I couldn’t do it on my own. I had to trust in Jesus.”
“To sum it up, before Christ, I rapped about how I was more dominant and cooler,” he said as he took a break from coaching boys in dodgeball on a recent evening at Beachpoint Church in Fountain Valley. “Now I rap about how I am weak without Christ and how I am not better than anyone else. The only reason I am able to stand on my feet is because the Lord dwells inside of me.”
Gallegos has been a youth pastor for second-grade boys for the past three years at Beachpoint and also cares for his 5-year-old daughter, Kiarah, through a shared-custody arrangement with his former fiancee.
A younger Gallegos may not have imagined his life would turn out this way.
When he was in sixth grade and living in Santa Ana, Gallego’s father became an inconsistent figure in his life, and the responsibility for Gallegos and his younger sister fell on their mother.
That was when the “streets started,” Gallegos said.
“It was the first time that I was really on my own, walking to school by myself, and just didn’t have the supervision that I needed,” he said.
For a time, playing sports helped Gallegos stay out of trouble and away from drugs and bad influences. And his mother had him use his grandmother’s Fountain Valley address so he could go to Fountain Valley High School and escape a neighborhood that they considered bad.
But in his junior year, in 2007, he got kicked off the football team for beating up another player. Gallegos said his life started spiraling downward. He began using and selling drugs and hanging out with gang members.
“When I had that free time from not being in sports, I really just gave into all the stuff that I didn’t do before,” he said.
Gallegos was known on the Fountain Valley campus for his rap skills, but the lyrics often were negative and focused on drugs, money and power.
His life became centered on substance abuse — dealing drugs, taking painkillers, snorting cocaine, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol.
At 20, Gallegos learned he was going to be a father. He stopped selling drugs, he said, but didn’t stop using them. He still felt an emptiness that he hoped a baby could fill.
But when Gallegos was 22, he and his daughter’s mother split up.
“When we broke up and I found that my family was not going to be one whole, it really just broke my heart,” he said. “I entered into a depression and a suicidal state of mind of just not being fulfilled in any way. I had come from a broken family, and I kind of created a broken family.
“I was in my lowest point of my entire life, and that’s when I reached out to God and found a joy that is just unexplainable and never ending. Finding that love in Christ and joy in Christ allowed me to pour that onto my daughter.”
“Working two jobs tryna raise a little girl, gotta balance out the lows living in an evil world. So I aim high. The enemy attacks, but he’s gotta realize that me and God on the same side.”
Gallegos said he also has a strong bond with the boys at the church and their families.
He said the boys’ parents are aware of his past and that this can open up a dialogue between them and their children.
Kim Staffieri, senior pastor at Beachpoint, said Gallegos is a positive role model for the kids and knows how to communicate with them.
“I think what Manny does is he shows kids how to love God because he loves God,” Staffieri said. “Everything that he thinks and feels comes out in every expression that he has. He’s able to take a kid who is not having a good day or feeling left out, spot that kid and, somehow, he can make them feel special.”
Gallegos said his music, which has been performed at church services, has been well received by the congregation.
One of his favorite parts about rapping about Christianity is that he can introduce two groups of people to foreign concepts. Christians who may have never listened to rap before would be introduced to it through his music, and his old fans would hear Christian lyrics possibly for the first time.
“In two different circumstances, the Lord is breaking a barrier through me,” he said.
Beachpoint is in the process of opening a Huntington Beach location, and Gallegos will perform in a June 26 fundraising concert at the Fountain Valley site.
He will give away copies of his second album, “The Genesis,” at the concert, as well as speak about his life.
*IF YOU GO
What: Emmanuel Gallegos concert at fundraiser for Beachpoint Church
When: 6:30 p.m. June 26
Where: 17415 Magnolia St., Fountain Valley
Cost: $10; includes CD
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