Lecrae Moore grew up in Houston and Dallas carrying a generational curse that he could trace back through his family: absent fathers, sexual abuse, drug use, and violence. His father was not present. A family member sexually abused him as a child. By his teens, he was drinking, using drugs, dealing, and running with gangs — following the exact same pattern that had destroyed the men in his family before him.
The Pattern That Kept Repeating
Every man in Lecrae's family seemed to follow the same script: no father, early trauma, substance abuse, violence, prison or death. The women in his family suffered under the weight of it. Lecrae was on the same trajectory — he survived a drug overdose at age nineteen and barely registered it as a warning sign. The generational pattern was so deeply entrenched that self-destruction felt inevitable.
A Conference That Rewrote His Story
At a Christian conference in 2002, Lecrae heard the gospel in a way that cut through every defence he had built. He surrendered his life to Jesus — and the pattern that had defined his family for generations stopped. Not gradually. It stopped. The drugs, the violence, the reckless self-destruction — all of it lost its grip. More importantly, the fatherlessness cycle broke. Lecrae became a present, engaged father to his own children — something no man in his family had done in living memory.
Turning Pain into Purpose
Lecrae channelled every broken piece of his story into his music and ministry, becoming one of the most influential voices in hip-hop. But the real testimony is not the Grammy awards or the platinum records. It is the fact that his children have a father who is present, sober, and rooted in faith. The curse ended with him.
What This Means for You
If fatherlessness, abuse, addiction, or violence have been recurring themes in your family for generations, Lecrae's story proves that encountering Jesus can end the cycle in a single moment. You do not have to become the next chapter in a pattern that was never meant to define you.