The "minister of groove" and renowned drummer, Zoro marches to a different beat and explains where his name originated from.
"It came from a trip down to Mexico City with my mother," Zoro said. " We went down to the bull fights when I was a young boy on a family vacation, and I bought a Spanish, one of those cardboard Zorro hats from the matador. It had like the flower on it with the wire and everything." Zoro brought it home just as a souvenir and had it tacked onto his wall for many years.
"One day I started getting real busy in L.A. doing a lot of gigs and-and I looked at the hat, my hair was all messy and I was like, 'I don't have time to comb it, let me just grab that hat off the wall,' and I just threw it on my head and put my hair in a pony tail," Zoro said."
Zoro's mother believed his character was similar to the legend Zorro's. "You look like Zorro. You should call yourself Zorro," she would say. Zorro's mother believed like Zorro, he had a heart for the poor and the underprivileged."
"So, it was just sort of a "God download," Zoro said. " It just sort of happened naturally, and then from then it just rolled."
In talking about his real name, Zoro playfully jokes, "No one will ever know. And you won't pull it out. I'll pull my sword out."
Don Diego Dellavega is name of the Zorro legend. Like the film and TV persona, Zoro cares for the poor and the less fortunate.
"I was one of those people," Zoro said. "Out of my lack and out of the things that I didn't have growing up, I believed that God developed in me a heart of compassion. Because you don't really have compassion for anything that you haven't experienced yourself."
Zoro believes God will use people instrumentally in their lives with whatever they are broken with.
"As God gives you victory in that area, that's the very area you'll be able to reach others in that same area of hurt," Zoro said. "That compassion grows out of just the situations you've you've had to face. So for me, I grew up as an underdog, underprivileged, people always didn't think much of my potential."
Zoro grew up on the streets of Compton, Los Angeles, one of the roughest parts of Los Angeles.
"Because of that I think I know what King David felt like when no one believed in-in David," Zoro said. " You know, his father didn't believe in him, Goliath didn't believe, nobody -- and so I kind of know what that felt like being a kid, so I guess inwardly I was always rooting for people who I knew what that felt like. With God, I was able to rise up and learn to see myself through His eyes and not mine."
Zoro quickly made a name for himself in the music industry as "the minister of groove." His turning point to Christ occurred at a young age. He credits God's grace for getting him through.
"As long as I can remember I felt the presence of God. There's not a time I can remember, as far back as I can remember 6 or 7, I just felt the presence of God. I felt Him and my sister, my oldest sister reminded me recently, she said, 'When you were about 7 years old," and I didn't remember this, she goes, "When you were about 7 years old, you used to raise up your hands and you used to say, 'I just -- I love Jesus, I love Jesus.'"
"I don't know whether it was through my mother's prayers, but there was a sense of Him from the beginning and His hand has been on my life ever since," Zoro said. "There's definitely different turning points where you just fall in love with the Holy Spirit, and God and you really want to serve Him with all you've got, but it-it goes as far back as I can remember. I was called.
Zoro's mother played a key role in his life. "She was the most influential person in my life because really, she was the only one in my life" Zoro said. "I didn't have uncles, aunts, grandparents; it was just her and us. [She had an] enthusiasm and zeal for life and passion for the Lord, and she never ever discouraged me. Anything that I said that I wanted to do or dream of, she always told me I could do it. Zoro's mother always said, "Have faith, son, have faith. Have faith in the Lord, He can help you. So, I believed her."
Zoro has performed with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Marie Presley, Lenny Cravitz, and Bobby Brown's New Edition.
In an industry known for devouring its own, Zoro has managed to stay afloat because of his Christian faith. He has been sustained through believers praying for him.
"Through my own wife praying for me, my own mother in the years before I was married," Zoro said. "I guess early on I was able to see, you know, at-at 18-19, I was able to see what Hollywood was all about and I quickly realized it was about nothing. That people that didn't have the Lord, didn't have anything. They were very empty, they had all of the riches that the world could offer, but none of it was able to bring them joy. But it didn't take me very long to see there's an empty place in everyone's soul that's reserved just for the Spirit of the Lord, and people try to fill it with sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, and it never was able to make them happy," Zoro said. "The Howard Hugheses, the Brittney Spears, the Elvis Presleys, the Jimmy Hendrix, I mean, if those things could make you happy, then all those people would have been genuinely happy. And they weren't, so I said, "You know, what? I need to get back with the Lord."
Zoro went through stages where he immersed myself his my music and was able to accomplish some of the things that he had set out to do.
"But even that, even everything you accomplish, if your heart's not with the Lord, it doesn't really fulfill you," Zoro said. "It's like, 'Wow, that's cool. Now what? Next.' And after being able to accomplish a few of those dreams that I had, I realized the only place that ever fills my heart is when I'm close to the Spirit of God. And then that's when I really pursued the Lord with all my heart."
Zoro believes God allowed him to see a lot of things just he could be the voice that he is today.
Zoro has had tremendous success a as a musician. The heart of His message is Christ centered.
"The heart of my message is that people are made in the image of God. People are made for God. People have a purpose," Zoro said. "Most people don't realize they have a purpose. God made people with a purpose." Zoro goes on to say "He has a plan for [your] life if you seek Him with all of your heart, you will find Him and He will change your life and He will fulfill the-the very calling of why you're on the planet. There's a reason why all of us are here. There's a specific talent and gift He's given to each of us and He wants us to use it. He wants us to develop it. He wants us to be good stewards of that," Zoro said. "The whole purpose of my ministry is to encourage people in the Lord, to encourage people to turn away from their sin, to repent, to get right with God and as you serve Him, watch Him do great and mighty incredible things."
God has done great things in Zoro's life. "[There has been] major healing in my spirit and my soul from my childhood," Zoro said. "He's given me an awesome wife. But He's given me, more than anything, just like that love for Him, you know, and I seek Him like hourly, daily, every minute I'm thinking-thinking of Him, pondering on the Lord. I want to know Him.
My message to people is, "Turn to the Lord because that's where hope is. That's where restoration is, that's where purpose is." Without the Lord, there is no purpose in any of this."
