(Formerly SIR DYNO) David Rocha | From Gangster Rapper To Senior Pastor

Today I am joined by David Rocha! David was a well known rapper in the 90s - 2000s. His rap name was Sir Dyno. During the same time he was also a drug dealer and a gang member. David became very well known on the street by the police and from his music. He would eventually get arrested and go to prison. While in prison David surrendered his life to the Lord. Since he has been free he has been sharing the gospel.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And I'm sitting there solitary, no homeboys around, no music bumping, no studio, no concerts. And I realized I filled my life with noise because I didn't like what I'd become. Matter of fact, I had one of my CDs called What Have I Become because I no longer understood who I was anymore. I remember that day, I'm just like, Lord, I really messed up my life. I said I don't even know how to change. I thought I was building an empire and I realized I can't get out of the very empire I thought I'd built. I'm trapped. I don't know if being a Christian is saying, man, I still want to do those things, but I'll abstain from it. But what good is it if in my heart I desire it? You know? And I'm just like, but God, I did see you change my dad. My dad got saved when I was eight years old and he changed and he still changed. So God, if you can do that to my dad, and maybe you can do that with me, because I don't know how to change. I'm a criminal, I think like a criminal, I act like a criminal, and everything I do, everything I have, everything is violence and manipulation and lust and money, and I don't know how to get out of this. But if you can change me, change me, but if you can't, leave me alone. And then I said this, Lord, I surrender.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Welcome back to another episode. Today I'm joined by David Roachak. David was a well-known rapper in the 90s and 2000s. His rap name was Sir Dino. During the same time as he was building his rap career, he was dealing drugs and he was a gang member. David became very well known on the streets by other gang members, also to the police, and from people that liked his music. He would eventually go on to catching cases and being arrested by the police. While in prison, David did end up finally surrendering his life to the Lord. Since he has been free, he has been sharing the gospel. He is now a senior pastor. Please subscribe to my channel for more interviews like this. And without further ado, let's get into David's story. Alright, everyone. Thank you for tuning in for another episode. Today I got a special guest on today. David, thank you for coming on. I really do appreciate you coming on, and I I do just thank you so much. It just means a lot for you to come on today.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And uh uh I always look forward to anytime I can share, you know, share a little bit. And my whole thing is just to inspire and help people, and and I'm just glad. I'm glad I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, well, same, you know, the the feelings mutual, man. It's just I've always loved covering redemption stories, and I came across yours just doing some research through YouTube. I seen you on the 700 Club, and I seen you just in churches sharing your testimony, and I just thought, wow, this is just such a powerful testimony. You know, I I've always been interested in listening to how people have turned their life around. And then now, you know, the interest of how people turn their life around for God and how you had a you know a background of being involved with you know gangs and uh you know being a you know a well-known rapper back in the day and just giving your life to the Lord and just completely just changing it, man. It's just a phenomenal story, and I look forward to hearing it today, man.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

No, no, thank you. Appreciate it. And you know, um, I'm I'm new to your channel because I remember when I I got your email a few weeks ago and I was like, who's this guy? You know, and I looked you up, and that's awesome. Everything that you're doing, you know, just kind of scrolling through and seeing some of the content you had, and you know, so I love to see stuff like this, and I just pray that um it continues to grow bigger and bigger, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, well, thank you, David. I appreciate that. Well, I think uh, you know, let's let's go into your testimony, David. Um, what was it like for you growing up? Or, you know, actually, where would you where do you start your testimony usually?

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Well, usually I I do start in my childhood because it was it was an interesting time because you know I notice a lot of the younger people now maybe they don't fully understand what life was like. Um, I grew up, I was born in the 70s in 72, so I grew up in that whole um the way I this is how when I talk to young people, I'm like, You ever seen America and Me, Blood In, Blood Out? I said that was real life. I said obviously it's Hollywoodish, but nevertheless, you know, the lifestyle, the dress, the clothes, that was real, you know, and I grew up in that seeing my older brothers, even though I was a kid in the 70s. Um, I consider myself an 80s kid because uh I was born in the 70s, but my teen years were in the mid to late 80s, and uh it was it was wild, you know. It was wild. I grew up in Tracy, California, which is a really small town, but it's nestled right in the center of some major cities. Uh to the west of me was San Francisco and Oakland, uh, north of me was Sacramento and Stockton, and south of me was Modesto and Fresno. So we were like right in the center of it all. And um, and just growing up there, my dad was a farmer, uh, cultivated tomatoes. I grew up on a ranch, actually, you know, uh not too just on the outskirts of of Tracy, California. And uh it was an interesting time because back then um we were such a small town that if you were from Tracy, there was no gangs in Tracy, you were just from Tracy. And if anything, when there was parties or house parties or weddings or quintinetas, uh if anything, we would fight against people outside of Tracy. You know, and uh it wasn't until maybe when I was uh well 18, 19, um, that it became very fragmented within my town and uh and and just all of that nonsense that came with it, you know. But you know, I like to another thing I like to state in the very beginning is this is a lot of times most of people's stories they end up where they say, Well, I didn't have a dad, or my mom was on drugs, or this or that. I had both my parents. My mom got saved when I was five, and my dad was an alcoholic, and my dad got saved uh when I was eight three years later. And uh once that happened, it changed the whole household. But I had two older brothers and an older cousin who were very influential to me. So while I'm being taken to church, you know, as a kid, I didn't have a choice, you know, and I was taken to a church, and um I'm seeing my brothers, they're getting lowriders, they're cruising, they're bumping oldies and old school. It wasn't old school then, it was new, you know, but you know, bumping that music um and stuff like that, and my cousin, um just the dress and the clothes uh was exactly like these movies that I mentioned. It was very influential. And and another thing that was happening that I didn't realize until I became an adult was like the whole Mexican mafia started in the late 50s and 60s, I believe, and then nuestra familia in the late 60s. Um, a lot of these guys that were that were getting involved in a lot of the stuff you see in the movies, um, they were getting busted in the 60s and 70s, but guess when they were being released in the 80s, you know, and so you have I I kind of see it like this storm that was brewing without my generation even realizing what was about to hit our neighborhoods. Because in the 80s, you're talking breakdancing, hip-hop, rap, I mean graffiti. It was a great time, you know. It was a time, you know, rap battles and breakdancing battles and pop and locking. So we had no idea that we had a whole generation of Chicanos that are about to hit our neighborhoods that had been indoctrinated with the prison stuff, and they was about to flood the streets. And um, that's a that's something I realized as an adult what happened. At the time, I didn't realize what was happening, and I almost consider it a a coming storm that we didn't see coming. You know, have you ever heard it said that way?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

No, no, and not at all, but that is a good way to put it because what what other way to look at it as? But as an adult, that's when you get a look back at times and really analyze things if you can make it to that age. You know, not a lot of people do, but fortunate enough for you, you were so and that time, what was going on when when these people started coming out in the 80s?

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Like, for instance, I live in Tracy, and in Tracy, um, there's a Tracy prison is actually where the Mexican mafia started in in DVI, uh, dual vocational institution. The the that prison just shut down two years ago, but that was where the where the MS started. And uh, so our local newspaper, it's the second page always had an article about some riot, somebody got stabbed, uh, somebody in Nuestra Familla got stabbed, somebody in the in a black guerrilla family got stabbed, somebody in the uh all I mean, just or or a correctional officer got killed, or like just all these crazy articles. So growing up, there was nobody that looked like me on television, there was nobody that looked like me in politics, there was nobody that looked like me to look up to. And uh so I think we tended to make these guys our superheroes. You know, when they came out of prison, they were treated like superheroes, you know, and so it's almost like in a weird, twisted way, something to aspire to. I remember the way kids get together and they'll say, Man, I'm gonna be a pro-football player, I'm gonna be a pro basketball player, I'm gonna be this, I'm gonna be that. Back then, it was like, man, I can't wait to grow up and be in nuestra familia. I can't wait to grow up and go to prison. And and that was that was our we didn't have Marvel movies back then, you know. So in a weird, twisted way, this was life, this was normal. You aspired to get to prison, you know, and and I can't believe when I look back how twisted that was, but nevertheless, that was the reality of what it was back then, you know, and um because of that mentality, it caused you to do things and it caused me to do things that um somebody will say, Are you crazy? You're gonna end up locked up, you're gonna, and I'm I'm like, that's the goal. That's the goal here, you know. And uh, so I grew up in the midst of a gang culture at the same time. Again, looking back, this is when crack really became big in the mid-80s. In the same time, this is when the whole cocaine wars was going on in in Florida, you know, with the Colombians and all that. At the same time, this was um when rap music was becoming very popular. When I was a kid, it was only popular in the East Coast. You had groups like or songs like Rapper's Delight, you had Grandmaster Flash, Mel ML, you had these rappers from New York, and uh it was starting to creep into LA. But a lot of the LA groups were kind of real cheesy at that time, you know. But nevertheless, rap was getting popular, and I remember um writing poems about my frustration uh because I started getting involved in gangs, uh, maybe 15 years old or so, maybe 15, 16, and um and even that was an accident, man. Uh uh, I didn't I never wanted to be part of a gang. I was from Tracy, I would just represent a Tracy, and if we were at a Quintanetta and guys came from local towns and we'd fight them and kick them out of our town, you know, but that was it. Uh but basically a gang started in Tracy over the movie Colors. Uh that was another influential movie. And um, I remember this gang started. I guess these kids watched Colors and wanted to start a gang, and they started jumping everybody in town, saying that we're gonna force everybody. And um, I remember talking to my friends, and I said, if they ever try to jump one of us, I said, uh, we ain't gonna let it happen. And uh one day they jumped one of my friends, and instantly uh we became a gang because I remember that night I gathered about 30, 40 people, the friends on my side of town, and uh we found out where this gang was at. We went and started jumping each and every one of them that we found, and it turned into a big old gang fight. And overnight I became a gang leader. Overnight. I didn't want to be a gang leader, I didn't want to be in a gang, but now I found myself at the center of this thing, and uh and ever since that day, I mean you asked somebody else, they might say something different from Tracy, but from what I saw in my perspective, we split Tracy up that night when that gang fight happened and kind of forced everybody to choose a side, and it just it's never been the same ever since then, you know, and uh here I am involved in something, and I started so Tracy was small, man. We only had a couple gas stations, we had a couple supermarkets, a couple main streets, so we were gonna run into each other all day long, all the time. So there was constant fights, constant jumping them, them jumping us, and uh, and um it just got really wild, you know, and I would write poems because I was it was a very frustrating time, and there was this local DJ. Now I don't know if it's like that now, but back then, if you were a DJ, you were kind of uh you kind of had some some some hood status because a local DJ would learn how to scratch on two turntables, 1200 techniques, and they would rent a hall, and um, and everybody would go to their their dance, basically. They would rent a hall, get some lights, get some speakers, charge uh a head, you know, for each head at the door, and that's how these local DJs got bigger. So if a local DJ did that and nobody went, then that DJ was like basically canceled. They're like, man, that DJ's whack. But if you had a good DJ play good music and mix the good, his stuff would get more popular and more popular. Next thing you know, everybody wanted to go to this person's dance. So this local DJ named DJ MT out of Tracy, he passed away, you know, recently. He was ended up being in my rap group later, but he was a very well-known local DJ. He sat next to me in class and he's like, Hey man, what are you doing over there? I'm like, nothing. Because I was writing poems, you know, and I'm like, he's like, no, seriously, man, what is that? I was like, he kept bugging me, and I was like, they're poems. He was reading one to me. I'm like, I'm not gonna read you a pro a poem, bro, you know, and he's like, seriously, man, let me hear. So it was my frustrations of just in the hood and stuff that was going on. He's like, man, you should rap, man. You should put a beat behind that, you know, and um and I'm like, man, you're crazy, you know. But for a whole year, because of who he was, I highly respected him because he was like this local celebrity, in a sense, you know, for us kids. And um, I started trying to learn how to say my poetry over a beat. And that's kind of what started that whole thing. So I'm in a gang, and uh, and now I'm trying to be a rapper. And uh, what really happened a year later, what really made me say, this is what I want to do, was there was a song that everybody was bumping. Everybody was bumping this, and I'm like, who is this? Because I was used to at that time, by this time, it was the L O Cool Jays that run DMC, um, LA Dream Team, uh, just people, you know, a couple groups from LA. And I kept hearing this bait, it was just rattling people's trunks, and come to find out it was too short. He had a song called Freaky Tales, and everybody was bumping it, and I'm like, who's this guy? Because I had never heard rap with a fat, real thick bass line. And um, that was the whole that's when the whole Bay Area style of music came, and come to find out he's from Oakland, that's 30 minutes away from Tracy. And I'm just like, man, if he can do it, then I can do it, you know, and I vowed to kind of be at that time, you know, as a young Chicano, I said I'm gonna be the greatest Chicano rapper to ever uh release a record, and that's when I really took it serious, and I started um maybe even a year after that, I opened up for Kid Frost at a concert, and then I opened up for lighter shade of brown, and later on, so little by little I'm becoming a local artist, I'm a gang member, and then I started selling drugs. Started off with selling weed, and um, but later on, you know, it got it turned to some more serious stuff. And uh so I often tell people um it was a perfect storm, you know, a perfect storm because I thought it was perfect, but it was becoming a storm, you know, and uh and just everything, you know, just all of these things all intertwine. Now you got now, mind you, here my family is serving God, you know, and now I'm a young adult, and my parents are worried, they're concerned, they don't know what to do. Uh, my brother, my younger brother's going wayward, my older brother was hooked on drugs, one of my older brothers, and my parents are like, what is happening to our family? You know, we we raised these kids to serve God, and everything's falling apart, you know, and uh so I I I want to be honest is that I believed in God, but I also believed in my dreams that I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to become the biggest Chicano rapper, I wanted to become Scarface, you know, also, and um, and all those things, all those I guess just uh uh dreams of what I wanted to do and accomplish. But in life, man, in life, sometimes things aren't the way they seem. You know, these same people I was idolizing in prison, you know, um, I didn't realize, I guess, the underworld of that, of what comes with that. You know, you tend to watch these prison movies and you see all these exciting things happening, not realizing what about the dead time, what about the downtime? What about the years and the months and the the family that leaves you and the kids that forget you and people that die that you love and and they're you come out and they're they're gone now, you know?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

So Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, it just sounds like you got to the stage and like everything just really started to and for you was looking good, but in the back of your mind you knew you know God was real, God was something that was the higher power, but you had your power that you were wanting to chase, you know, whether that was money, drugs, all that, and then you know, you got your family, you know, worried about you and all that, but I mean it's just the the pleasures of the world, you know, they're sometimes they can be more enticing, right? Yeah, and so like you know, my point is is like how did you uh how did you handle that at that time? I mean, because you you know, I don't want to skip over nothing, but I mean like at this time this is when you're young and you're coming up, so like you you didn't handle it very well right in the beginning, like you just went full force with it, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I um sometimes I I still to this day don't understand why I did the things I did. I don't understand how I survived, to be honest with you, because um during the 90s was probably the most violent I've ever seen neighborhoods, even more so than as a kid in the 70s, more so than the 80s. Uh I have never seen a time like that. I mean, we're talking about a time where I don't know how it was in other states, but here you would see pockets of gang members on street corners, pockets of gang members in front of liquor stores or parks. You couldn't go to a park that'd be and I know for young people they don't they probably can't imagine 30 gang members hanging out at a park or pulling up to a gas station and there's two carloads of dudes, all blue or all red or whatever it was, getting out and putting gas and grabbing in, you know, some snacks or whatever. And I mean, if you're at a gas station, you don't know who's gonna pull up. If you're at a at a in a drive-thru, to this day, man, I'm traumatized. I don't get close to cars in a drive-thru because so many people would get murdered at drive-throughs because you're stuck there, you know, and somebody will drive by and be like, hey, there's that dude. You know, boom, you turn around and um, you know, and you get murdered right there because you're stuck between two cars and there's nothing you can do. So even to this day, um, I don't I leave room. I leave room just in case I gotta mash out. I don't care if I gotta go through some bushes or whatever. It's just ingrained in me because that's the kind of life that it was at that time, you know, and uh so I'm not sure if younger people understand what that was like. Yeah, I think a lot of guys my age grew up like have PTSD, you know, in a sense, and it it was it was on and cracking, you know. So, anyways, um so here I am. Um maybe at this time, finally by the time I'm 23, uh I was I already was a father. I already uh um was moved from weed to selling methamphetamine, you know, meth. It wasn't so much crystal meth yet, it was meth, which kind of looked a lot different than crystal meth. It was it didn't look like glass, but it was it was just uh it went from that. Uh we signed a major record deal because I so by this time, by the time I was 23, I opened my own recording studio with with the guys in my group, and uh we started recording, recorded a local album, and it was called From the Body with Love. And that had rappers from San Francisco, from Oakland, from Hayward, from Merced, Stockton, Tracy, I mean, from everywhere, kind of created a super group. And um within maybe three months of releasing that locally. A label called me from Los Angeles and said, Hey, we want to sign your album. We want to re-release your album on a nationwide scale. And uh, and that was um from The Body Will Love, went down to LA, signed a contract, and that thing released everywhere. And you got to understand at that time it was very limited as far as Chicano artists. Uh, yeah, you had lighter shader brown, kid frost, proper dose, a couple other groups, but for the most part, uh, it was non-existent. And in Northern California, it was really non-existent. Uh, we just completely uh we didn't have a trail to follow, we made our own trail, you know, and um and it just became huge after that. That's when I started traveling a lot and going to do concerts and uh car shows, autograph signings. I remember flying to Miami, flew to Denver, uh LA, uh Phoenix, I mean Texas. And um, but at the same time, I wasn't letting go of my street life. I wasn't letting that go. It was a huge part of me, and I I think I thought I could do both, you know. Um there's a term later on that people said um studio gangster. And I was like, I I wish I was because I was really live, I was really rapping about the stuff we were doing. Of course, there was exaggerations, because I mean that's rap, but nevertheless, we were really out there selling dope. We were really out there gangbanging, we were really out there carrying guns, we were really out there doing this stuff, and um, I think I believe that the reason our music became so popular was because uh I think it it had a sense of realness to it when people listened to it, and I think because of that, it just became very, very popular. And um I remember seeing what what Suge Knight did with Death Row Records, and in a weird way I said, This is what we're gonna do, but for Latinos, we're gonna build an empire. And I often say this that the whole time I thought I was building an empire, in reality I was building a prison with me right in the center of it. That's the way I describe it now. Um because it just um sometimes you know I'm left without words, man, because I'm just like, what the heck was I doing? You know, um I remember my oldest daughter, uh something happened outside of my house, there was a confrontation, and um she was in the house, she was a little girl, and uh bullets started flying. And I'm not gonna say which way, I'm just gonna say bullets were flying. And I remember uh my daughter hiding under the bed screaming, thinking that I had gotten shot, you know, and I remember grabbing her after the after this happened and just hugging her and saying, I'm okay, I'm okay. Why I thought that was normal, you know, I don't understand. I don't comprehend myself, I don't comprehend my own way of thinking of the way I used to think, you know. Um, but I'm embarrassed to say that even at that time, as much as I loved my kids, in my mind, the gang was first. That's how twisted and brainwashed I was. You know, it was a gang before family, gang before kids, gang before anything. And um, and that was my mentality. And that was a real mentality. That wasn't just something that sounded cool in a rap song. That was real, you know, and that was my reality. And um, and it just got even worse and worse and worse, you know. I don't know if you want to interject in this part or just keep going.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Well, I was gonna say is like that was probably just the you know, that was what was going on on the streets, and that was what was probably going on around you with the guys you probably were around, you know, your crew. That was just the mentality. I mean, that was the gang, right? I mean, is is that fair to say? I mean, yeah. How old are you? I'm I'm 24, man. I'm okay. I'm I'm like, I don't know how old you are, but I'm I'm way, you know, yeah, I'm 52. Yeah, so about half half of your age, you know. So I was born in 2000, but I've always, you know, growing up, I always loved listening to that that kind of you know era music back, you know, way back, you know. So I'm familiar with the stuff that you're talking about, you know, the artists and everything, but and the and the kind of the music and you know the violence and stuff, but I mean a lot of that was what it was at the time. So I think maybe that was just your mindset, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

I think that was is this how you so so when I mentioned these things about some of these old some of these movies and stuff, does because I remember talking to one of my sons recently, uh, because he likes Blood in Blood Out because he thinks it's the most funniest thing, because there's it's so such a quotable movie, you know. And um, I was like, you know, that I mean there's some exaggerations, but life was like that, you know. And he's like, really? Yeah, you know, I mean, is that kind of like how you see it?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Or well, I see it as um, I guess I've interviewed quite a bit of guys now. So I mean, to to get an understanding of what it was like, I mean, not just in California, but New York, I mean, throughout the whole United States, I mean, it seems like back then the 90s was just hot, just very, very, a very rough time to grow up in. Yeah, and and so so the time you're an area you're talking about is just rough. So, yeah, I mean, the movies reference everything. I'm following, that's for sure. I'm following, man. I I got you, but okay, continue on.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Go ahead, yeah, yeah. So now, um a lot of again, there's people coming out of prison, people are in influential by that time. Um, life out here is very uh for those that are gang members, it was very uh it integrated with each city, like it was very structured. It was very like if because I wasn't I'm from up north, so I was an orteno or a northerner. And um, if you if you wanted to get a hold of somebody, whether good or bad reasons, all you had to do was call somebody in that city. I mean, it was so networked. I don't know if it's like that or was like that in Los Angeles, never been in Los Angeles, never lived there, didn't never went there until I was 18. But here, man, it was um if somebody robbed you, for instance, and you found out they were from some city two hours away, all it took was a phone call to find out not only who that was, but where they live and where their family lives. So it was very um like this huge net, and uh and it can be scary. You know, it can be scary, you know, and uh so what happened, what started happening though is in the middle as as my career was getting more and more popular, more and more nationwide, um a lot of people from Los Angeles were moving up here, and a lot of them were kind of bringing their gang mentality up north, and uh a lot of them were starting their own gangs up here, you know, and so it got the whole time like northerners were just killing each other, fighting each other, and in the meantime, you had this undercurrent of people from Los Angeles coming and kind of taking over stuff. So apparently in prison, uh it was told to somebody that was gonna release that was really high-ranking, a really high-ranking Behomie, was told we need you to go out there and unite the Northerners. You need to unite them, you know. So obviously, they said, now this is just third person that I heard this from, you know, but they it was said that the best way to unite them is through rap music because rap music is so influential. So go out there, find the most influential northern rapper, utilize him, and have him make an album to unite the northern front. So this guy gets out, asks a few questions. Next thing you know, this is why I'm explaining about this network. You can find anybody. All of a sudden my phone rings. And um I was told, hey, you know, I'm I'm I'm so and so, I just got out. Um, I really want to invest, you know, in rap music. Uh I sell cars and I restore lowriders and sell them, and I really like rap music. So I wasn't told the whole story, you know. And he just says, you know, I really want to invest and do this album, and I want to pay for the whole thing. Well, at the time, I'm I'm getting known, but here's the thing about the music industry, at least back then, just because you're getting known, don't mean any money's coming in yet. You know, you got to build the name for yourself first. So it seemed like a sweet deal. This guy's saying, hey, I'll release this album, I'll pay for it all, and we'll split it 50-50. So I'm like, great deal. So I meet up with him, have a conversation, and he's like, Man, I want to do this, I'm gonna pay for everything. He goes, but here's the thing, here's the catch. I was like, what? He goes, I want you to do a North Daniel rap album to unite all the northerners against the southerners. And I'm like, uh, well, you're just gonna release it locally? He goes, Yeah. Because you see, I was already getting popular in other states. I was already getting popular even in Los Angeles because a lot of my stuff was like real Chicano, Brown Pride, kind of, even though I was a northerner in the streets, I didn't want that to leak into my career. You know, I didn't see a reason for it. I wanted to be the biggest Chicano rapper, not the biggest Northenio rapper, you know. But when he said that, and out of my desperation, and I was a northerner, I was, so I understood the cause. And I'm like, you know what? I can do this nationally as Sir Dino, but I can do this locally with this guy and make some money. And so I can, you know, kind of help myself. And I was like, yeah, sure, let's do it. And I had no idea, man, what that CD was going to do. I had no idea what was gonna happen. Um, I ended up getting a lot of all most of the rappers I was with were Northerners too. So I'm like, hey man, let's do this album. This guy's gonna split it 50-50. I said, I'll split my 50 with you guys. Let's do this. And they're like, let's do it, you know, and um, so we ended up releasing this album. No idea. It caused a violent wave across all Northern California. It caused shootings and drive-bys and just horrible stuff. It got to the point where, because it got in it it got into Sam Goody, which was a huge music chain back then. Sam Goody, Music Land, Tower Records, Warehouse Records, and um what I thought was going to be a local thing, distribution picked it up, and it just got everywhere, even out of state. And um we had parents protesting in malls saying, Why are you allowing this album to be here? It got banned in some cities, um, and apparently um it got the attention of local police, so they created a task force of different police agencies from all over Northern California to figure out who are these rappers, who is putting this out, and we need to get the bottom of it and we need to stop it.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Dang, that bad.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Wow, yeah, yeah, it got really bad, and uh so I'm driving. This was now a couple years after it released. I'm driving down highway five, and uh I had sold some a couple ounces of meth the day before I was supposed to sell a couple more ounces, and it didn't fall through, and the guy wanted to buy it in the morning, so I left it under my seat, and um I'm driving and I get pulled over by a canine unit, and uh that meth wasn't even shouldn't even be it's like the size of a king-size Snicker bar. That's it. It was just under my seat. I should have taken it out. I was on my way to Stockton, I wasn't even gonna sell it. I just had left it there the night before because it didn't sell, and I get pulled over, man. And um they search my car, obviously they find it. I get arrested, and they call um Tracy uh detectives to come pick me up because this was out of tracing. So detectives pick me up, take me back, and uh I'm thinking like, oh man, I'm gonna get busted for um this dope. And all of a sudden the detectives rolls out a poster of the G U N album, and he says, We know exactly who you are. He was we've been waiting to meet you, and that's so that was crazy. I ended up fighting that case, ended up getting a year for that, and uh did most of it on house arrest, and uh, but that kind of started the spiral of this whole thing, and fast forward, the guy that that hit me up was uh a high-ranking member of Nuestra Familia. He released it, you know, and um supposedly his 50% of the money he was supposed to kick to them. Um I had nothing to do with that. Mine was toward the artist, and uh I never got money. Never got my money. The guy um took the money, and apparently, you know, this is public public information. Apparently, he kept their part of the money too, didn't kick up money where he was supposed to kick up money, got hooked on dope. Um, they were looking for him, and apparently, uh uh from transcripts that I read, they found him and he blamed it all on me. He told them that I had taken all that money, and I'm just like, I'm I'm sitting here broke living on people's couches. What are you talking about? You know, I didn't even have a car at the time. Trying to, I'm over here a nationwide artist, you know, and um trying to make it work, trying to do stuff, and trying to, you know, just trying to do whatever it is I had to do, man, and still gangbanging, still trying to sell dope, still recording, you know, and uh wow, wow. And a couple years after that, the reason I say all of this is public information was because I was arrested by the FBI, uh, the DEA, the Tracy Gang Task Force, and I was charged under the RICO and uh with the federal indictment. Now the RICO was that's what they use them for the mob, the Italian mob. Yeah, and uh now I'm facing RICO charges, and uh that was insane, man. And next thing you know, I find myself in an Oakland uh North County jail, and um I'm in this same unit with pretty much the entire leadership of this prison gang. And these are guys I didn't even know. I wasn't a part of them. I was a northerner in the streets, but that's like just the the local gangbanger. You know what I mean? I wasn't not tied to any any prison gang, never been in prison, so at that time, you know, so uh it was crazy, man. It was crazy. Um here's the thing. I still, still at that time was ignoring God. Still, my aunt would talk to me about God, my mom would talk to me about God, my dad would talk to me about God. Still, I wanted to do it my way. I wanted to be the biggest Chicano rapper. I wanted, you know, and by this time though, a couple years after that CD, boom, my nationwide uh career takes off. I'm on the radio. Um, more and more radio stations are picking me up. We had started our own label, got distribution for it. So I ended up buying a house cash, you know. So things were going good, things were going great. I'm starting to get radio play. Um, the next radio station that was gonna play us was in San Francisco. And once that happened, that means after that, it was gonna get picked up in Chicago, in LA, in Dallas, it was gonna just take off after that, you know, and and it was at that time when um I'm trying to remember because there's so much that happened, you know, and uh, but it was at that time that I I was fighting the Rico case, I got released on a federal bond, and like a big dummy, I ended up doing a drug deal on Federal Bond with a friend who I thought was my friend, but he was wearing a wire. Dang. And uh, yeah, so we did, and a matter of fact, he was one of the members of the rap group I was in. Yeah, and I've never ever publicly said who it was because that's that's not what I'm about now. You know, so many people trying to figure out who it was, and I I I've never shared it, it doesn't even matter. Uh, you know, but he was wearing a wire, and uh I was recorded, and next thing you know, uh three months later, they uh arrested me as I was fighting that big case. Now I caught another federal case, and they were now saying 23 years to life.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

And were you now locked in? Not let they're not gonna let you go, right? Like no more, but no, no more bails or bonds, no more of that.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

No, they're telling me 23 to life, and um, this is my now my third felony. Yeah, and the federal see in California they have a thing called three strikes, you're out, but in the federal, because I was caught by federal, they have a thing called a career criminal that if you get busted for the same exact thing three times, it's a life, it could be a life sentence because they call you a career criminal. You apparently can't stop, you keep doing the same thing. So it's basically a 23 to life uh sentence. And uh it was my third time getting busted with meth, you know, and uh so they wanted a career criminal me, and I'm just like freaking out. I'm freaking out, and I'm just like, man, this is insane. Like, okay, I understand getting busted for drugs, but 20, but life? Are you kidding me? You know, and again, I'm gonna tell you what happened the weekend before I was busted. This is crazy. Once in a while, I'd still go to church with my parents because they would like kind of nag me and nag me and nag me to go to church, you know. And so every I had to, you know, so I showed up. And they went to this Pentecostal church and they did like worship songs for like an hour. I'm like, are you serious? You know, so I purposely went late so I didn't have to stand for an hour clapping. And I got there late, it was about 600 people, it was overflow, so I had I was on a folded chair in the back wall. My dad didn't know I was there, my mom and my brother, who at that time was now the assistant pastor of that church. I don't remember what they preached about. All I remember is at the end, you know, when you go to church service and they're like, if anybody wants to come up for prayer, this and that, like people were up there, and I remember my brother didn't know I was there, and he grabbed the microphone. And um he says, You know, let you know, everybody who come up if you want to pray for your family, if you want to pray for your children, your grandchildren, you know, just let's come up and pray. And he calls up my dad. Nobody knew I was there, and he says, Dad, how would you dance for the Lord for the salvation of your son? And the moment he said that, my dad started spinning and dancing, and to the world you would think like, Wow, this man's making a fool of himself. But bro, that did something to me. I have heard people preach to me, Bible study, trying to, you know, shove the Bible down my throat. People invited me to their play, their church is having. I remember crumbling the piece of paper in front of them. All of those times people talk to me about God never did what happened to me that day. It was like this this huge anvil just hit broke through my heart. I remember, you know, I got upset because like I got very emotional, and I'm like, man, homeboys don't cry. I'm not gonna be sitting here crying at church. And I remember walking out to the lobby, not realizing that that Monday they were gonna serve me with that indictment and arrest me. And I remember driving home that day, and I'm just like, God, I I I want to change, but I don't know how. I I don't think I can. I think this is the life that this is what it is. You know, and you know, I'm breaking my parents' heart and and I can't change. Not realizing that that Monday uh I was gonna take my son to school, I was gonna get surrounded by the FBI, and I was gonna get arrested again. So that's what happened. They took me to Sacramento County jail, and uh they put me in solitary because I had nuestra familia affiliations on my record. And nobody in nuestra familia can can be in regular population. Even though I wasn't a part of them, I was affiliated with them because of the case, uh, the the prior case. It was called Operation Black Widow. You can look it up on Google and it it's that crazy indictment with uh all the leadership of Nuestra Familia. And there I am, a rapper included with them. And um, it was there, man, that I realized that in in the cell, there's this piece of metal that's supposed to be your mirror. It's like a shiny piece of metal, and it's all scratched up, people carve their names into it, and I'm sitting there solitary, no homeboys around, no music bumping, no studio, no concerts, um, no nothing. And I realized I filled my life with noise because I didn't like what I'd become. Matter of fact, I had one of my CDs called What Have I Become because I no longer understood who I was anymore. You know? Um, and I remember that day, I'm just like, Lord, I really messed up my life. I said, I don't even know how to change. I thought I was building an empire and I realized I can't get out of the very empire I thought I built. I'm trapped. You know, I said, and one thing about the streets is I don't want to be fake. I said, and and I don't know if being a Christian is is just like I don't know if being a Christian is saying, man, I still want to do those things, but I'll abstain from it. But what good is it if in my heart I desire it? You know, and I'm just like, but God, I did see you change my dad. My dad got saved when I was eight years old, and he changed, and he still changed. So, God, if you can do that to my dad, then maybe you can do that with me because I don't know how to change. I'm a criminal, I think like a criminal, I act like a criminal, and everything I do, everything I have, everything is violence and manipulation and lust and and money, and like I don't know how to get out of this. But if you can change me, change me, but if you can't, leave me alone. And I remember praying to God, and and then I said this I said, Lord, I surrender. I surrender to you. And right there in solitary confinement, Sacramento County jail, I'm not lying, man. It felt like like a ton came off of my shoulders. And I don't even it happened so fast, I don't think I really fully understood what happened. Um, it was to the point, man, where if I would see a Sureño or a Southsider in Walmart or whatever, I would instantly go from zero to like I would get angry, angry. The guy didn't even do nothing to me. And I always had that. So the way Sacramento County Jail is, is there's it's like two towers, and in the center there's elevators. So when you go to court, they get people from this side and people from this side, and you meet in the middle and you come down. So they would keep northerners and southsiders on separate towers. But the only time you would see the your opposition basically was when you were going to court. And I remember being taken to court a maybe a day or two after I surrendered my life to the Lord. I'm in my cell. I felt different, but I didn't know if I was different. I felt something different. I remember telling the the officer, is there any way I could get a Bible? You know, and I just started reading a Bible. I was trying to understand, you know, and so I'm getting taken to court, and for the first time I saw they had me in the shackles, they had other people with me, and then they took people out of the other tower, and a lot of them were Southsiders. You know where the weirdest thing happened? I saw them, no hate. It was the weirdest thing. No hate, no anger. And I'm just like, I remember I was in my shackles, and I'm just like, how can this be? How can this be? Like, how can something be ingrained in me for so many years? And I'm looking at them and I feel nothing bad, you know, and that was like kind of the beginning of my life uh in Christ. I started reading my Bible, um, I started to study my Bible, I started to pray every day. Um, I kind of kept it hidden in my cell, and then when I would come out to day room, I would still kind of be around the homeboys. Um, but I noticed like their talk didn't, it was just different. It's like I had different ears. And I was like, what's going on here? And after maybe two or three months, I started bringing my Bible out and I started to have Bible studies, and it was there I started to help, and and now my own homeboys kind of turned on me at that point because they're like, you can't be spreading that poison in here. You know, we're outnumbered in every prison, and you're over here trying to convert, you know, like like we're outnumbered in every prison. Everywhere there's there might be 20 northerners, but there's 200 of them, and you're here, you gotta quit, you know. And basically I I ended up getting jumped for that, and I just still refused to quit. I kept going, you know, and then they got to the point where they just thought I was crazy, you know, and um so ended up being that um the 23 to life, I ended up taking a 13 and a half year, and even then I was tripping, I was freaking out about that, but I'm like, well, it is what it is, you know. By the time I get out, all my kids will be adults, you know. But you know, it's better than life. But the day I was gonna get sentenced, this was insane. The day I was gonna get sentenced, because even though I signed for 13 and a half years, it was a done deal. They just had to formally sentence me, and then I would have another, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were gonna formally sentence me, and then I had to wait for them to pick me up, the marshals. The day of, I remember getting the newspaper that morning, got out to take a shower, waiting for the marshals to get me. Um and I showered, made my coffee, and I opened the front page, and it said federal guidelines found unconstitutional. Now let me tell you what this means. Back in the 80s, during the drug cocaine wars, um the president was Ronald Reagan, and what was happening was people getting busted with a pound of coke in Miami, and people getting busted with a pound of coke in Denver, and they were their sentences weren't matching. So basically, Ronald Reagan said, We're gonna put a system on all 50 states because people are getting sentenced and it's all over the place. It's kind of like a multiplication table. You know how like you have numbers on this side and numbers on this side, right? And um, so basically it's like your criminal history and how much drugs you had, and let's see, that's the sentence you're getting. So that way it could be more uniform nationwide. So these federal guidelines put me at 13 and a half years if I pled guilty. Now, if I would have gone to trial, it would have been the 23 to life, like I told you. But because I pled guilty, it saves them money, they don't gotta go and find a jury and all that. 13 and a half years was my federal guideline. That had been in place from the 80s. But on the day I'm gonna get sentenced, on the very day, the front page of Sacramento B says federal guidelines found unconstitutional on the day. Wow. My court gets canceled, my lawyer comes and visits me. They make another date two months later, roughly two and a half months later. Now, here's the thing, though. With that law, the judge could use the guidelines as a guideline only, but it's not mandatory anymore. But the judge can give you more time than what the guidelines said or less time. By the time two months passed, my lawyer tells me, you know, David, this this law, man, has been a blessing and a curse. I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, Well, there's guys that are going in that the guidelines saying they deserve 10 years, but the judge is getting angry and giving them 20. Because now the judge doesn't have to listen to the guideline. So she goes, it could be a blessing, it could be a curse. She goes, but this is what I want you to do. I want you to speak. I'm like, you want me to speak? They're like, she goes, Yeah, I I just I think you're well spoken. Well, you know, you have you're well spoken. I want you to speak. She goes, but please keep in mind you say the wrong thing, it could go real bad real fast. So I'm like, great, you know. So I'm like fasting by this time, two years had almost passed. I'm in the Lord, learning the Bible. I had read the Bible through and through like four times by this time. I'm teaching other people, giving Bible studies, leading other people to the Lord. You know, so now I'm fasting for two days. I go before the judge. Prosecutor gets really mad because the prosecutor's like, Why are you bringing this up? He already signed 13 and a half years. Judge, you just need to sentence him. And the judge got angry. Judge says, Whose courtroom is this? Yours or mine? Prosecutor's like, uh, well, it's yours. He was okay then. He was, then why are you telling me what to do? And then he tells my lawyer, does Mr. Judge, uh Mr. Roach, is he gonna speak? My lawyer says, Yes, he does want to speak. Judge looks at me, he says, Mr. Roach, do you have something to say before I formally sentence you to 13 and a half years? And I said, Your Honor, I do want to say something. I said, Um, I know that you probably hear this all the time. I said, but in these last two years, I've surrendered my life to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know you're gonna sentence me to pay my debt to society. I said, but I want to tell you that when I get out, that's when I'll truly pay my debt to society because I will preach the gospel and reach other people like me. I said, I apologize to the courts, I apologize to you, I apologize to my community, but that's what I'm gonna do. Judge gets real quiet, he says, You done, Mr. Rocha? And the way he said it, I'm like, Oh man, here comes the 20, you know. And the judge was like, I said, Yes, Your Honor, I'm done. He says, Let me say something. He goes, You're right, all of you find Jesus in jail. So I'm like, okay, he's gonna give he was but but he says, you know what? He goes, for some reason, I believe you. He was knocking your down, you're he's they talk in months, I don't remember the months were, but basically my 13 and a half got knocked down to seven and a half. Prosecutor has a fit, you know. Now in federal prison, you do 85% of your time. I was still fighting the Rico case in San Francisco, but this was crazy, is because all of those charges got dropped, but because I did a crime while I was on bond, I now had to face a San Francisco judge. So now I get sentenced to seven and a half years, then two months later I got to wait like two months, Marshalls pick me up, take me to Oakland. Now back in Oakland, they put me in the hole for a year, and uh finally I'm there. I got sentenced to a year and a half, but a year of it is concurrent with my seven and a half, and um so it just adds it adds a year. So a year is concurrent, the other half gets added to my seven and a half, so my seven and a half is brought up to eight. Out of the eight years, I ended up serving six years in federal prison, and I ended up getting my um associate's degree in biblical studies, my bachelor's in ministry. I started preaching in prison, and the Lord told me you're gonna pastor and you're gonna preach. I argued with God about it. I didn't want to preach, I don't want to be in the limelight, but it's like God's gonna win the argument. I so this is in this all started in February 25th, 2004. Uh I was free um in January of 2010, and uh a year later, a year and two months later, I started House of Rest Church here in Modesto, California. And I have gone full bore ever since, reached people like me. Half my congregation are tatted up, half the congregation. There's guys, my assistant pastor did 23 years, my greeter has done 27 years, you know, and uh we got regular people, regular families, regular all that, but um a lot of people have came because they feel comfortable because they said, Man, I came out of prison, I wanted to go to church, I didn't feel comfortable. You know, I felt like people were staring at me, this and that. He goes, but man, it feels good here, it feels like home, you know, and fast forward now. Um, I'm gonna celebrate 14 years pastoring this church that started in the basement of my house, and now I'm in a building that holds 200 people on Sunday. We have five classrooms for children, we have a youth center, we have a pantry, we give out groceries uh once a month, we have this podcast room, um, and we are now for five months now uh in prison. They have tablets now, they're controlled in what they see. But um our Sunday sermons, our Bible studies are now uploaded and uh to 2.5 million inmates in prison. Um, it's like YouTube, so they don't have to click on us, but each each upload, we're gaining more and more and more subscribers. We are right now at almost 1.8 million views in prison.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 57:22

Yeah, this last sermon I preach on Sunday has just reached 20,000 views.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

Uh we're getting tons of letters, and why are they listening? Because they know that I came from where they came from, man. Yes, you know, because there's like 108 different ministries and churches on their tablets, so it's kind of like you don't know, you know, they're not all gonna watch you, but the ones that are watching us are loving it because they know that when I'm talking, I'm talking out of experience of what they went through, and they get inspired because they're like, man, if this guy can do it, I can do it, you know, and and that's where we're at right now, man. That's where we're at, and and you know, I've I condensed a lot in this last hour, you know, but um it's beautiful what God has done in my life, you know. He blessed me with an amazing wife that I met when I got out, and uh all my children are in my life, you know. My mom and dad attend my service. Oh yeah, yeah, they're members of this church. Uh my little brother is is who is a pastor also, he's comes and and and uh he he's part of this. Uh there's a podcast segment we do, uh man, and and it's just been a blessing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Yeah, no, and David, wow, that is just uh phenomenal, man. Just the way that you were able to navigate your way out through prison without having to do 23 plus years, you know, and to come out after getting your degrees and just really putting them to use in in a great way and making people feel at home, you know, or or feel comfortable, you know, because like you said, they may have gone into different churches or whatever, and they might not have seen people that were you know in your situation that were in prison that you know, so now you welcome that. I mean, you other churches do, of course, too, but I mean to see someone up on you know preaching and giving the message, you know, that was someone in prison. I mean, that that makes you I can totally understand why someone would feel comfortable with that. You know, people have to find their home, their church, and where they get along, where they fit in. And so that that only makes sense. And like, I mean, the things that you have done and that you've accomplished, man, it's just absolutely phenomenal, man. And like, I think all the things that you have uh been able to just achieve through you know your ministry and just grow over 14 plus years. Is that what you said?

SPEAKER_02 59:49

And that's how long you've been doing it's about to be this May, this coming May will be 14 years. So we're about three 13 and a half years so far.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

Okay, yeah, and so you said 200 plus you know, people can attend and yeah, child children's groups and uh you know classes as well. So wow, man, it's just a complete, complete turnaround, just an absolute blessing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's great, you know. Uh, but reaching these these uh inmates is a huge deal for us, it's something brand new. When I stepped out of prison, most people are like, oh man, you can go back to the prison and minister. I was like, man, I don't ever want to see a prison in my life again. I'm not gonna come out and be a jail chaplain or prison chaplain and none of that. But I mean, everything goes full circle, and now it's I'm doing something more powerful than going into a jail. Now we're going into uh hundreds, hundreds of places, jails, prisons, penitentiaries. It's just insane the letters we get. I just walked in a few minutes ago to turn his laptop on, and there's a stack of mail in our mail slot from prisons all over the place, you know. And it's just amazing what God is doing. There's truly a revival happening in prison. Uh people have always gone to preach in prisons, but honestly, it's it's not been very effective, but there's something happening now because of these tablets that allow our uh uploads. Now it costs us money, it's kind of expensive to do. Um because you know, everything in prison, man, they're there to make money. You know, so they have all these tablets where these inmates can buy music, buy movies, they can take courses. But in order for us to get on that tablet, uh we pay a good amount every month. But what I did was I get people to pledge, and I'm just like, there's no way this church can pay for that. There's no way. So I find people that say I can pledge 100 a month or 50 a month or 30 a month, and we make it happen, you know, and then I put them on a um, like a I email them every week with an update of how many views we're getting or what's happening, what's news happening, and collectively together, you know, it's so it's it's a group of people that help support that allows us to get in, but it's an amazing ministry, you know. And a lot of times people don't like to give to a church, they're like, I don't know where my money's going. Well, you know, what's awesome is when you can give toward a specific ministry, like you know that's good soil. Like you know, you know it's gonna reach people that are unreachable.

unknown 1:02:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

And here's the here's the best part because I did a year in solitary confinement, and uh man, that was that was that was horrendous, man. That was horrendous. Um, but most people with tablets that it's reaching are those that are in the hole, those are in solitary because all they have is their tablet. There's nothing else to do, you know. So they're getting these Bible studies, these, these, these sermons and podcasts, and it's just a it's just a great. I wish I had a tablet when I was in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

I'm sure, yeah. Yeah, I know no doubt it would have helped you out a lot for sure. But you know, it's just with evolution, with time and everything, you know, they they do these things. So now they got them in place. But David, do you do you have any final words or anything you want to say before we wrap up here?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

Well, no, first I appreciate you for just being patient, hearing me out. You know, I've shared this um story on other podcasts and other things, but uh I like the fact of what you're doing, and and I'm praying that maybe it'll reach somebody that hasn't seen those others, and it can reach somebody in a positive way. Um there's a lot of things that we do, you know. Uh I wrote my book, I wrote my whole story. It's on Amazon. So I do want to push that. It's called uh Lost in the Storm, and uh it's my story. I actually wrote the first half of it while in solitary confinement, you know, and uh so that's available as an audible too. If you're not somebody don't like to read, you can hear it on audible, and it's me narrating it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Oh, perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

We have uh not only we have our website, House of Rest. So the name of the church is called House of Rest. Not House of Rest, but House of Rest. And uh our website is houseofrest uhchurch.com. You can go to our website, you can go to our YouTube channel, House of Rest Church. Um what else? You know, I there's a lot of things, man. Just the books that we publish. Uh we're we uh we we did a film a few years ago that I'm about to re-release it on Amazon Prime. Um I got a bootline coming that I I'm just about to launch. We uh have our own boots that we're doing, cowboy boots, and uh just different things that we're doing, man. Just good stuff, you know. Good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

And if they see everything should be on your website, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

And that's where you're everything will be on the website, you know. And I just if somebody out there you want to this story is matches your story, and you don't know um anybody else like that, you know, go to the website. My you all you gotta do, there's a part where you can put your name, your email, and put a small message, and it goes straight to my phone.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

Yeah, I think that's how I got a hold of you, actually. That's I think that's where I might have got your email. So it does work, everyone, from experience. Yeah, yeah. David, thank you. This was awesome, and I just really appreciate you taking out this. It was an honor for me as well, just to hear your testimony. And I really do hope anybody listening. I mean, if you got a loved one or anyone or you personally yourself that may be struggling, just you know, uh hopefully this impacts you or just share it with someone that you think really needs to hear this. I mean, this is this was great, David. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:34

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

The Lord took the hate from David while he was in prison. David went from being a gangster rapper to a senior pastor. What an absolute turnaround story. He is a transformed man, thanks to the Lord. It just really blows my mind to digest that. I really hope you and you guys enjoyed this. I feel very fortunate enough that David took out time and came on the show today. Please comment any key takeaways that you got from this testimony from David. Please share this testimony with anyone that you think needs to hear it. Have a family member or a friend that's struggling right now with similar things that David talked about today, or just share it with someone that loves to hear a great redemption story. Hit the like button if you enjoyed today's video. Hit the notification bell if you want to get notified when the next video comes out. Please hit subscribe if you want to get more videos like this from me. At the end of this video, a playlist will pop up of all the other people's testimonies that I've got a chance to listen to and record. Thank you again so much for watching, and of course, we'll see everyone on the next one.