'Reformed Rapper' Lecrae reveals guilt & shame about 'his' abortion
MINNEAPOLIS (Christian Examiner) -- "I just broke down," Lecrae's hands followed the tracks tears had made down his face. "The guilt, the remorse and the shame of it all."
On a five-minute Desiring God video, Reformed rapper Lecrae Moore, now 35, performed and talked about one of his songs—"Good, Bad, Ugly" from his recent album "Anomaly"—and how it describes his personal experience with abortion as a young Christian.
"Anomaly," released last September, soared to number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart as well as the Gospel Album list, making it the first time in Billboard's history the same artist had the top spot for both at one time. "Anomaly" is the Christian rapper's sixth number one album, out of seven albums made, although it is the first to reach the top spot in a category other than Christian or Gospel.
A Christian by 2002, he still was involved with his former life, Lecrae sings in "Good, Bad, Ugly."
"My soul got saved, my debt had been paid, but still I kept running off with my crew, sex on my brain and death in my veins," he rhymed for John Piper, former pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and John Ensor, president of Passion Life Ministries, a pregnancy help outreach.
He told them at the time he believed the urban myth "if you consume enough drugs you would become sterile" and so he did not think he could get a girl pregnant.
He thought wrong.
"We heard a heart beat that wasn't hers or mine," Lecrae rapped for them. "The miracle of life had started inside."
His girlfriend was "so fine" and his body "was loving it," Lecrae continued in song, but to him it was not a serious relationship.
"I was just having fun with this," the lyrics revealed.
Fatherhood would change everything, Lecrae realized. He was not ready for a grown-up world.
"I'm too young for this," he rapped. "So I dropped her off at that clinic; that day a part of us died."
Their relationship also died that day, Lecrae said to the two men.
"After the abortion, I really pretty much shut it out of my mind, literally to the point—it is shameful—I ignored all her calls," Lecrae told them. "I quit dealing with her altogether. The last time I saw her I remember she was curled up on a bed crying."
He did keep photographs of her, Lecrae offered, in what he now recognizes was a memorial to that unborn child.
Years later, during a time of premarital counseling with the woman who became his wife, Darragh, they now have three children, he got rid of all the photos he had of former girlfriends, except for those of his unborn child's mother.
When he realized he was unable to throw those photographs in the trash, he broke down in tears. Facing his sin started the healing process, he shared.
"That was the beginning," he said.
"Anomaly" has remained on the Billboard 200 chart for 18 straight weeks, becoming his longest-charting album by surpassing the 17-week runs of his "Rehab" (2010) and "Gravity" (2012) releases.