The hit autobiographical series UNCENSORED explores the lives of your favorite personalities as they provide first-hand accounts of their success and the obstacles they faced throughout their careers. Season three continues with Gospel music trailblazer Donnie McClurkin. Donnie McClurkin has made his mark on the world as a multiple award-winning gospel singer, minister and actor. After overcoming extreme adversity as a child, sharing his testimony and ministry with the world has helped him find peace within himself.
This season of UNCENSORED profiles KEM, Remy Ma, Marsha Ambrosius, Lisa Leslie and Jaleel White.
UNCENSORED is produced for TV One by Eric Tomosunas, Keith Neal, James Seppelfrick and Paul Hall (Executive Producers), Jay Allen (Co-Executive Producer), and Nikki Byles (Producer) of Swirl Films. For TV One, Jason Ryan is Executive in Charge of Production; Donyell Kennedy-McCullough is Senior Director of Talent & Casting; and Robyn Greene Arrington is Vice President of Original Programming and Production.
VIDEO: Donnie McClurkin Speaks on the Devastating Loss of His Brother
VIDEO: How Oprah Increased Album Sales from 30,000 to 300,000
VIDEO: “I’ll Probably Be Alone for The Rest of My Life”
UK worship group, Elim Sound, has announced the upcoming May 7, 2021 release of its latest album, God is Still Moving. Recorded in homes and studios all across the UK, the album was produced by Ian Yates and mixed by Trevor Michael.
God is Still Moving contains a number of new voices, including a song that the team are really excited about; “Still Moving.” This song was birthed at our School of Worship songwriting residential in 2019 by four students, Laura Rook, Anesu Mbanini, Laura Ham and Oluseyi Esan. Our heart has always been to see the songs from our movement develop and grow organically and it’s so great to see a song that was started off at our School of Worship now included on this project.
“What a season we’ve been in. This last year has seen us all facing new challenges and uncertainties. We’ve all been affected by Covid19 in so many ways, yet amongst the tensions and struggles we are facing we are firmly convinced that God is still moving. The Church may have had to close its buildings and adapt in this season, but God is at work through His Church. He’s still faithful, He is still with us and He is worthy of all our praise. God has reminded us that He is not confined by our buildings and our programmes, He is at work all across the world.
We feel this new collection of songs brings a new depth and honesty to our writing. While the project contains songs of praise and worship, it also contains songs of lament and songs that bring big questions to the table yet remind us of the eternal hope we have in Christ. Once again the team have been intentional drawing from the breadth of worship leaders and songwriters in the movement inviting over 40 Elim songwriters into the process.
Many of us have struggled over the last year, many of us have lost friends and loved ones. We pray these songs provide a soundtrack for us all as we navigate this season of tension, trusting the One who holds it all, Christ Jesus.” —Elim Sound
Nigerian global music star Sinach announced she will be performing a live virtual concert titled Sinahc Live at Easter: A Celebration of Joy.
Sinach shares that this virtual concert will contain a “message of love, hope and joy to Nigeria and the world.” Sinach is expected to perform a playlist of her hit songs, including some from her latest album, Greatest Lord, which dropped today.
The virtual concert is scheduled to begin on Monday, April 5 at 12 PM EST and can be viewed below.
Composer, keyboardist and former Christian radio broadcaster Michael Canaan releases his solo debut project, Caught Up In The Clouds. A trailblazer in the Smooth Christian Jazz genre, Canaan’s seven-song EP is hallmarked by easy-listening grooves and peaceful melodies inspired by Scripture.
Caught Up In The Clouds showcases four instrumental selections and two vocal tracks—each solely penned, arranged and produced by Canaan—as well as a reimagined rendition of the beloved hymn “For The Beauty Of The Earth.” With Canaan’s keyboard-driven melodies at the heart of the project, the EP also boasts multiple guest appearances.
The ethereal “Spirit Rain” features Los Angeles-based saxophonist Donald Hayes(Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan), while the upbeat “Secret Place” displays the talents of guitarist Tristan Auman of South Carolina rockers The Unapologetic Kind. In addition, vocalist Jennifer Robbins is featured on the Psalm 23-inspired “Surely,” and “Like A Thief In The Night” showcases vocals from Southern California Christian music recording artist Athena.
“For a long time, I felt that my gift for music was intended only to please God in my quiet place, but I have lately begun to realize I was burying a talent He gave me,” Canaan explains of the EP’s genesis. “I believe worship music can take on any musical form imaginable, and since I’ve always been drawn to the chord progressions and lyrical stylings of jazz, it’s become my desire to use that for the Lord’s glory. Ultimately I hope my music can be a blessing to those with similar stylistic inclinations.”
“Not only do I hope listeners will perceive the motivation behind this music—to draw people closer to God—but I pray this project speaks directly to spirits by the Holy Spirit, and that the lyrics serve as devotion and reflection upon the goodness of God,” he adds.
Michael Canaan (pronounced Kuh-nahn) has been instrumental in the advancement of the Smooth Christian Jazz genre over the past two decades. In 2000, he founded and hosted “The Dove,” a Charlotte, North Carolina, radio program giving voice to the burgeoning Smooth Christian Jazz scene. He also launched one of the genre’s leading websites, which featured the latest faith-based Smooth Jazz releases, reviews and exclusive artist interviews. Stepping aside from these media pursuits, Canaan married and began a family while continuing to hone his skills as a composer and arranger. Caught Up In The Clouds marks his return to the spotlight, fulfilling a dream to write, record and release original music.
Amy Grant and Ellie Holcomb will appear on “The TODAY Show” this Tuesday, March 30 performing “A Woman,” the debut single from the FAITHFUL: Go and Speakalbum. Amy Grant, a six-time GRAMMY® Award winner, along with multi-GMA Dove Award® winner Ellie Holcomb will be joined by an all-female band, showcasing the exclusive performance from the historic Ryman Auditorium for a stunning tribute to women and God’s faithfulness. Along with the performance, Grant and Holcomb will join “The TODAY Show” third hour for a live interview to share about the upcoming project.
The poignant “A Woman” tells the the story of Mary Magdalene and God’s faithfulness in her life. The song was written by Holcomb, New York Times® best-selling author Ann Voskamp and artist Sarah Macintosh.
Earlier this year it was announced that the ministries of Compassion International, David C Cook, and Integrity Music were releasing the FAITHFUL Project, encapsulating a book, music, and livestream event. The album, FAITHFUL: Go and Speak, will release April 30. The FAITHFUL book will be available on May 1 and tickets are currently on sale for the FAITHFUL Livestream Event to be held Saturday, May 1. Click here for more information.
In addition to the TODAY Show appearance, Grant and Holcomb are part of the Gospel Music Association’s Easter broadcast special on TBN, Because He Lives: An Easter Celebration. They will perform “A Woman” on the TBN broadcast that will air Thursday, April 1, at 9:00 p.m. EST / 8:00 p.m. CST with additional airings to follow.
Today the pre-order / pre-save is available for the album as well as the single, “Rahab’s Lullaby (God Above, God Below).” The song features Sarah Macintosh, Rachael Lampa and Sandra McCracken, and was written by Macintosh, along with Ellie Holcomb and She Reads Truth’s Amanda Bible Williams.
GRAMMY® nominated, multiple American Music Award, Billboard Music Award and Dove Award-winning band MercyMe is set to release inhale (exhale)on April 30, and it is available across all DSPs for preorder today. In anticipation, MercyMe is also releasing a new instant grat track and lyric video for “On Our Way,” featuring Millard’s son Sam Wesley, along with previously released tracks, “Almost Home,” “Say I Won’t,” and “Hurry Up & Wait.”
The fast-rising current radio single “Say I Won’t,” which is currently #7 on the Billboard National Christian Airplay chart and #9 on the Mediabase Christian Audience chart, is spinning on a vast majority of Christian radio stations across the country – including KLOVE, SiriusXM The Message, KLTY/Dallas, KSBJ/Houston, Z88.3/Orlando, WGTS/Washington DC, The Fish/Atlanta, The Joy FM/Tampa, KTIS/Minneapolis, and JoyFM/St. Louis. The track is a potent declaration of faith and perseverance colored by tragedy. Gary Miracle, a longtime friend that worked with MercyMe for many years, contracted an infection that resulted in having both his arms and legs amputated. His indomitable spirit in the face of such challenges was inspiring. Good Morning America’s third hour, GMA3, will be featuring MercyMe and Miracle in a special segment on April 15th. FoxNews.com originally premiered the song’s powerful music video last December. More of Gary’s story can also be seen here.
The 16-song collection (produced by Tedd T., Brown Bannister and Jordan Mohilowski) includes “Almost Home,” a stunningly poignant anthem that topped the charts for a combined total of 17 weeks. There’s also the buoyant “A Little Love” featuring Millard’s close friend Gary LeVox, lead vocalist for award-winning country super group Rascal Flatts. Disco legend and friend Gloria Gaynor lends her signature vocals to “Brand New.”
inhale (exhale) is the latest chapter in MercyMe’s creative adventure, and Millard admits this one was a long time in coming together. “It was two years and one month to the day that we started writing for this new record until we finally finished,” Millard says. “‘Almost Home,’ which is the first single, will be out a year and a half before the record releases. We would have had it done a year or so ago, but when the pandemic hit, it slowed everything down. We practically re-wrote the album two or three different times.”
The band began writing and wound up with more than 40 songs. Millard admits having the new record to focus on offered a welcome sense of purpose during pandemic life, and the opportunity to inhale (exhale). “It’s been a life saver working on this record during the pandemic when you can’t do shows and everything else. I love being with my family but I think my wife is like, ‘Yeah you function better when there is an outside purpose going along with this.’ I agree,” he says with a laugh. The pandemic—as awful as it’s been—has been amazing for our family, just getting to spend so much time together. It’s been such a scary place, but at the same time, it’s been great to have this much time with family, to push pause and not have a deadline. Everything has stopped. That’s a crazy feeling and after a few weeks or a month of me freaking out like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ I realized that we’re all freaking out together. Music has been put on hold and so once I realized that, I kind of let go and started enjoying the fact that some days my most important decision was what flavor of ice cream I’m getting with my youngest daughter.”
“One reason we’re calling the album inhale (exhale) is we all just want to sit back for a second and take a deep breath and be like, ‘Okay this is what matters. This is what matters,’” Millard concludes. “I’m grateful that messages like that seem to resonate with people on a consistent basis because there is hope in that, and if they can still get fired up about what’s to come then not all is lost.”inhale (exhale)
Track Listing:
1- Inhale 2 – Blessed 3 – On Our way (feat. Sam Wesley) 4 – So Yesterday 5 – A Little Love (feat. Gary LeVox) 6 – Whiplash 7 – Bright Side Of Broken 8 – Let Yourself Be Loved 9 – Hurry Up and Wait 10 – Brand New (feat. Gloria Gaynor) 11 – Uh Oh (Here I Go) 12 – The Moment 13 – Then Christ Came (Demo) 14 – Say I Won’t 15 – Almost Home 16 – Exhale
The Gospel Music Association announces Blanca and Danny Gokey will be co-hosting the Easter broadcast special, Because He Lives: An Easter Celebration.
Conceptualized as a way to celebrate and recognize Christ’s death and resurrection through song, the star-studded line-up includes powerful performances by Amy Grant, Anthony Brown & Group TherAPy, CeCe Winans, Ellie Holcomb, Jekalyn Carr, Karen Peck & New River, Natalie Grant & Bernie Herms, Nicole C., and Zach Williams. Because He Lives: An Easter Celebration will broadcast worldwide on TBN Thursday, April 1, 2021, at 9:00 p.m. EST / 8:00 p.m. CST with additional broadcasts at 11:00 p.m. EST / 10:00 p.m. CST and Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021, at 4:00 p.m. EST / 3:00 p.m. CST.
Filmed without a live audience, Because He Lives: An Easter Celebration is a production of the Gospel Music Association. The show is produced by Paul Wright and Curtis Stoneberger, who also produced the 51st Annual GMA Dove Awards show, and executive produced by Jackie Patillo and Justin Fratt. The team has assembled a special event featuring Easter-focused performances and messages sure to encourage and inspire.
GRAMMY Award-winning duo and Curb | Word Entertainment recording artist for KING & COUNTRY will be showcasing the for KING & COUNTRY LIVE CONCERT FILM- a full-length concert performance from the duo’s internationally acclaimed Burn The Ships I The World Tour.
The one-hour concert special will give fans an exclusive perspective of for KING & COUNTRY’s last arena show before the COVID-19 pandemic, giving a close-up view of the incredible live show that the duo has become known for. From intimate backstage moments to passionate sing-along with the sold-out audience, this is the most complete chance to see for KING & COUNTRY’s fully produced live spectacle. The concert film is set to go live at 8pm ET, and will be viewable below.
Jabari Johnson‘s popular track, “Fixed Fight” has recently peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Gospel Airplay Chart. Jabari called on songstress Krystal Broussard to assist in delivering a powerful message to listeners and followers of Christ. The singer’s forthcoming album is slated for release in May 2021, but you can stream “Fixed Fight” now.
“I want you to tell everyone you know to stop stressing. The victory bill has already been signed! Victory was ours before this even started, it’s a fixed fight,” shares Jabari.
It is safe to say that Jabari is in his “Winning Season.” Back in 2019, Jabari won a Stellar Award for New Artist of The Year. In 2020, he performed “Try Jesus” featuring Tobe Nwigwe at the BET Awards. The song peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hip Hop Chart.
His forthcoming album is set to deliver a motivational message of hope during these uncertain times.
Washington native Beth Whitney dwells in her songs, exploring every note and phrase, turning them inside out, and pulling the listener into her own journey as an intimate partner; sharing in her joys, her grief, her wonder, her gratitude. Sometimes her songs soar with a hymn-like spaciousness that swirls and spirals upward and transports us in flights of wonder; sometimes her songs echo with a rhythmic cadence that digs into the messiness of our daily lives, going to ground in search of the deep-rooted love that helps us grow. On May 28th on Tone Tree Music, Whitney will share her new album Into the Ground with the world. In what turned out to be an ideal follow-up to 2017’s The Wild Unrest, Whitney shifted her perspective ever so slightly to create Into the Ground. “On [The Wild Unrest] I was looking outward at the world around me,” she recalls. “On the new album, I am looking into the soil. Let’s look into that soil and see what’s happening. Soil is so complex.” With the partnership of producer and mixer Brandon Bee and engineer Matt Terjeson, Whitney’s new collection of songs lands effortlessly on beds of organic and orchestral—and at times overdriven and rhythmic—production; never coming close to overpowering the songs and the voice singing them.
Today, American Songwriter premiered “Two Sons,” the third single from Into the Ground, following “In Another Life” and “Wild Horse.” American Songwriter wrote, “Reimagining the beloved parable in a modern, Americana setting, Whitney’s understated arrangement beautifully serves the winder theme…the video and the song unite to express a timely message of celebrating those who were lost, but now are found”—read the article and listen here. “Somehow over my lifetime, this idea of home has become more familiar, and more foreign, all in the same cosmic breath,” says Whitney of “Two Sons.” “I suppose many of my songs thread-in an underlying search for someone or somewhere that would take me in. This desire to be fully known and embraced is so strong in us and yet so difficult to realize. ‘Two Sons’ is a parable Jesus told and one I’ve never forgotten.” Fans can pre-save “Two Sons” now at this link.
“Wild Roses,” the track that opens Into the Ground, floats in sparsely with thrumming cello and humming vocals; Whitney throaty hums twine around the deep tenor of the bass circling deeper and deeper with a steady cadence. The vibrating gyrations of the song create a mesmerizing, haunting, wraithlike atmosphere, carrying us to places below the surface of our lives. Whitney “wrote ‘Wild Roses’ last winter and had no idea it would be so fitting for the year to come. We are so often unaware of what is happening just under the ground…that a wintery meadow can look like a barren field when really, the soil is busy brewing underneath to be rich and ready to sustain life. I think it’s been a season of digging into the ground for wisdom, acknowledging needed work and healing, and hopefully planting healthier things for tomorrow.” Spare, fingerpicking guitar creates a lush sonic bed on which Whitney lays down her tender vocals on “Two Sons.”
“Wild Horse” rides along a jazz-pop vibe that evokes the skittering free-spiritedness of the title animal; the song moves with the passionate spaciousness of a show tune, so it’s no coincidence that the song came to life when Whitney was commissioned by the Seattle International Dance Festival to collaborate on a performance with the dancer Elise Meiners. Banjo rounds open “In Another Life,” a ringing, rhythmic stride that captures our vacillation between looking forward and letting go and looking back and holding on. Whitney wrote the song to express “any unlamented lament because even if the path we’re on is a beautiful one, one that we’d choose again and again; a grief deferred can keep us captive. It can keep us from bringing our whole selves into right now, and I don’t want to do that.” The brisk “Whole Heart” rides on waves of swirling guitars and keyboards as it defiantly resists her heart being torn apart by grief and facing whatever comes with her whole heart. The scampering bluegrass rounder “Huckleberry” percolates with light and love, while the gorgeously languorous “Thunder” unfurls steadily into the heart of grace and beauty. “This song,” says Whitney, “came in one of those early sacred mornings when everyone is still asleep and the world seems almost clear for a moment. This song is a prayer really and the chorus has words from a hymn written centuries ago.” The album closes with a hymn to gratitude and love, with echoing lines that circle around each other in a drenching chorus of praise; no matter what obstacles life throws in her path, Whitney sings, she assured that those who love her have illuminated her path back to their arms.
Into the Ground showcases Whitney’s artfulness as a songwriter and her determination as a musician to stare down the chaos in front of her and weave it into something else. She welcomes grief when it is in front of her because she knows what happens when grief is left out to spoil. Whitney looks straight ahead in her music; it’s the reason Into the Ground takes listeners deep into themselves in search of a common humanity.
Into the Ground Tracklist: 1. Wild Roses 2. Two Sons 3. Wild Horse 4. In Another Life 5. Whole Heart 6. Moonlight 7. Huckleberry 8. Shelter From the Storm 9. Thunder 10. I Go 11. You Leave a Light On
