DeAngelus Garcia Jr.
Saint DeAngelus
“My first memory of art: There’s a big building with chipped white paint getting on to I-94 west,” Garcia recalls, “I was young and it was a sunny winter day and I remember hearing Same Old Love by Anita Baker, it gave me a fuzzy butterfly feeling.”
De’Angelus Garcia Jr was born and raised in Detroit. He first fell in love with art by listening to music and singing along with the melody. “It made me feel good to sing and then I realized I was good at it.” His original dream was to be a recording artist. In church he became the president of the youth choir, he was in an all-male singing group, and was on the praise team.
Garcia is a writer by trade, before he started writing songs and while he was still singing in the choir, he was also a slam poet. Poetry opened him up to another world of theater experiential performances and more. He realized he was skilled in figuring out the infrastructure of a subject matter and was able to translate that in a way that is palpable. He says, “I can use the same source material to write multiple copies. I look at myself as I am the source material and I should be intentional in how I translate that energy.”
While attending Redford High School during his senior year in 2004 Garcia joined a co-op. He would spend half the school day at the record station Barak Records who brought us some of our favorite Detroit legends like Slum Village and J.Dilla. Spending his last moments of high school with the label inspired him to stay in the studio with artists to keep their independence.
Garcia breaks down the Detroit music industry into 3 categories:
"Artists who wanna be signed to a major label and a commercial artist.
Cats who are super lyrical and want to stay independent while representing Detroit's uniqueness.
Street rappers focused on living what they rap about versus worrying about perfecting the craft.
He figured out quickly that college wasn’t for him after spending 3 weeks at a community college.
Fast forward to 2015, Garcia had just brought a beautiful baby into the world, he got a corporate job to provide for her while taking care of his ill grandmother and still working to become an entertainer. He hated it and felt unfulfilled so in 2017 he did what any reasonable person does when they want to be self-employed immediately, he became a realtor.
Being a realtor didn't give him the satisfaction he thought it would. One day while he was feeling defeated in life he went to the Detroit Institute of Arts to avoid taking real estate photos. While he was oo and awwing throughout the museum his car was getting towed. Coming out to see an empty parking space was the last straw, he says, “I was going to check myself into a mental hospital.”
That was until an old friend invited him to New York for the weekend, feeling like he had nothing to lose he went and that experience shaped his life going forward. While in New York his friend took him to some religious services and he also began to do tarot cards readings with playing cards. While conducting readings for himself and others he started becoming more internal with his thinking instead of external. It became a Spiritual awakening.
Still in NY, Garcia was searching through craigslist jobs looking for something creative to get into. On a whim he was connected to someone else in NY who was looking for a production assistant to work with South By Southwest the film and music festival in Texas. He interviewed and got the job, he backpacked his way to the south and slept in the rental van the job gave him under the impression he had a license.
That experience opened his eyes to the possibilities of simply following your heart. Garcia describes himself as a creative professional. A creative professional is somebody who works as a creative professionally. He now works with people, places, and brands writing, creative directing, creative consulting and more. He considers himself to be apostolic meaning he establishes something for the people before moving on to the next project to share with the people.
“My name De’Angelus means man of the Angels so God’s vibration is already injected into my life.”
Recently, Garcia proposed to his fiancee Alexis Draper and to show her appreciation for him she ran him a bath on the New Moon. A ritual that he and her share together. While taking a bath his finance began to capture the moment on film. He was so inspired by the photos he wanted a reason to post them, that's when the project All Baths Are Ritual was born.
All Baths Are Ritual is a representation of the purification by the divine. Baths cleanse you and your body in many ways. “People be funky,” he says, “they need to change their energy, allowing themselves the intimacy of cleaning themselves and addressing whatever is on them, purifying themselves so they can be prepared for whatever.”
(photo by Saint De’Angelus)
This is the first in a four-part series by Garcia whose stage name is Saint De’Angelus. The project has four songs produced by JRGotTheHiTS featuring NAMETAG ALEXANDER, Brent Blak Smith, Boog Brown, and Bryce Detroit. The music takes you on a journey through spirituality, life, trials, tribulations, and hard work.
Now Garcia is focused on collaboration. He wants to collaborate with his photography, creative direction or just be on someone's strategic team. He says none of this would’ve happened without his support system, his fiancee, children, Dj Stacye J, JRGotTheHiTS and homies on the tracks and Detroit.
