Just when I said I would post less...

Today, I want to express my displeasure in the lack of response from gospel artists to the Women's March that took place this past weekend.

While several artists and lay people that I follow on Instagram posted encouraging words re: Travis Greene performing at the president's inaugural ball, only one artist posted something about the women's marches. THANK YOU BRIAN COURTNEY WILSON! Somehow, not even the female artists that I follow said anything about it. There's something very wrong with that.

It's amazing how we (the gospel community) can rally behind someone who believes their performance will help advance the ministry by providing music to celebrate a man who makes racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and every other "-phobic" comments, but we can't even acknowledge women fighting for their voices to be heard. This is not to knock Travis Greene's decision - it's his choice to do what he feels is right and it's my choice to voice that I think President Trump is deplorable. The Women's March was about solidarity and standing up for women's rights.

Just to be clear, women's rights are not synonymous with being pro-choice. Reproductive freedom is one piece of the puzzle and if you happen to disagree with that piece, I see that no different than when a minister preaches something you believe to be inaccurate by scripture but you continue to go to that church/follow his or her on social media/donate money to that ministry, etc. Women's rights include issues like equal pay for equal work, the right to affordable healthcare, the right to unionize for a respectable living wage, immigrant and refugee rights, benefits such as paid family medical leave, affordable childcare, and accountability for police brutality which affects people of color disproportionately more than white people. Or better yet, it also includes standing up against someone who in normal conversation said "Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything." in reference to a married women he tried to sleep with. (Read/listen to the entire transcript here). My guess is that a reasonable person would not disagree with fighting for most of these issues.

So praise and worship junkies, if there was ever a time to stand together, especially as women and people of color, this is the time. How about instead of posting self-promoting marketing ads, selfies, and/or ignoring the big events taking place in our society, we speak up about said events and share our perspectives and convictions. It makes for a great praise leader to know and acknowledge what's going on in society at large.

Blessings

Controversy (in my Prince voice)

I'm going to kick off the year with a bit of controversy.

Recently, Pastor Kim Burrell has taken a lot of heat for preaching a sermon where she called out homosexuality as a "perverted spirit." Her sermon was spread via social media and as a result, Ellen DeGeneres cancelled her from appearing on her show where she was presumably going to talk about her role in the soundtrack for the movie Hidden Figures. Her radio show was also cancelled.

Homosexuality in the black church has long been a huge deal and I believe that churches that believe it to be a sin are struggling to find the right balance of addressing it. When you're in the limelight for your music ministry and begin to cross over, it becomes increasingly difficult to find that balance. I suppose this is why Tasha Cobbs and Kierra Sheard haven't crossed over. It's definitely not for lack of talent.

As a worship leader, we get in front of God's people and invite them to come with us to a special place. A place where our hearts are tender to God's call, God's word, and His presence. In this place we become transparent, see our shortcomings, and feel God's grace. It's something we wish everyone could experience. While there is a time for rebuking and reproving, we need to make sure that people feel like they belong in the house of God. It's hard to do that if we don't treat/address sins equally and if we condemn folks to smithereens. Each and every one of us (all sinners) should feel equally convicted for our sins and equally loved because we are God's children. I'm not saying that God wants you to be silent or permissive. I'm saying let's ask God for the right way to deliver His word to his people so that we can be the most effective vessels possible.

In the words of Otis Redding "try a little tenderness." Or for those wanting a scripture "A soft answer turneth away wrath." (Prov. 15:1)

Blessings

6 things to consider when leading P&W

I strongly believe that one needs to prepare for praise and worship similar to how one would prepare to make an important presentation at work. Even though we want the Holy Spirit to bless and annoint us, we need to do our part to help increase the likelihood for success.

Besides choosing your song list, here are 6 more things you should think about when preparing to lead P&W or are singing at an event.

What's the occasion?
Is it a special service? Is there a special theme? This might influence your song list.

What is the congregation/audience like?
This is closely related to the first question. If you're singing at the senior's service, you might pick songs you believe an elderly crowd would enjoy. 

How is the stage set up? 
Are there enough mics for your team members? Is it easy to see the musicians? Are there trip hazards like long cords or speakers in the way? Is there a certain way you need to go to get to the stage?

When are you expected to sing?
Always arrive to a service or event early. You might get called earlier than you were originally told. I think its the Christian-like thing to do to be gracious enough to go early if asked. Conversely, always stay a while after you sing. It will appear arrogant to leave as soon as you're done.

How much time do you have?
Adjust your song list accordingly. It's fine if the spirit hits and you're in your own church and have freedom to go over your allotted time. As much as possible do what you're supposed to do in the time you're supposed to do it in.

What could you easily sing if there are technical difficulties?
What songs are popular or easy to sing if you had to use an alternate musician? What songs are easy to sing if your lyrics can't be displayed for the audience? Can you start a song in the right key if you can't hear the music? Have at least one song in your arsenal for this occasion.

Remember: planning is more than half the battle!

A song to lift your spirit during turbulent times

 

Today I am so saddened by all of the violence that's been going on. Not that I haven't been previously, but when a black men gets shot at point blank in his car with his loved ones inside (one of which was a child) and I see the video of the aftermath, my heart breaks. My God, are we (black people) not human? Do we not deserve a chance to take out our license like we've been asked to do without being shot? And now the police being killed in Dallas! Jesus take the wheel, like frfr!

What's worse is that people are so critical of each other at this time. We criticize the #blacklivesmatter movement. We criticize when someone paints a mural of the deceased. We criticize when celebrities speak out about social injustice. We criticize the NAACP for not doing enough. Tensions are high on every level.

If you are like me, your spirit is impacted by the loss of lives that seem senseless and is crying out to God for help. I know personally that music helps me get through things. So today I offer you the song that's been on repeat for me for about a week now, Baba Oh, from Jonathan Nelson's latest project.

"Open the floodgates in abundance and cause your rain to fall on me"

Review of Jonathan Nelson's Fearless

I don't purchase a lot of albums, but my brother told me to buy Jonathan Nelson's latest project. Here's my short and dirty review...

1. Intro - I kinda hate intros. Just get to the music already.
2. Fearless - I like the rap on this track, but the song is just OK to me.
3. My Hope - Thumbs way up. Mid-tempo, not too many words. Good for praise teams.
4. Name of the Lord - Thumbs up. A good mix of new school and old school.
5. Name of the Lord Reprise - Thumbs way up. I kinda love reprises. That's because the artist knows the song is good so why not keep going.
6. Anything Can Happen - Meh. I like it starting at about 1:37, but this is the longest song e-v-e-rrrrrrr.
7. Baba Oh - Baba yesss! Thumbs way up.
8. Rehoboth - Thumbs way up. This is a singers' song. There's a lot of intricacies. The musical styling is beyond pleasant. Great track.
9. Forever Settled - This is your old school praise party song. Not my favorite, but a decent song.
10. Brand New - Thumbs wayyyy up! Absolutely love this song. Like listen to it every morning song.
11. I Believe (Island Medley) - Thumbs wayyyy up! You had me at Island Medley! This is a hit.
12. Amazing Love - Thumbs up. This song makes a great solo. Shout out to Jade Nelson; she sounds really good!
13. Everything You are (Jesus Chant) - Thumbs up. I will def be playing this in my personal worship time.
14. I Give You Glory - Thumbs up. Nobody brings it like Tye Tribbett. You can "dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance all night" on this one!
15. Victory Chant - Thumbs up. I wish they would've let this one play a little longer.

Overall, Fearless has something for everyone. New school, old school, Caribbean, chants, - you name it! The album is currently $7.99 on iTunes. (Finally, an album priced right!) Long story short, get Fearless!

So long, bye bye... (In my Island Medley voice :)

My mic sounds nice check 2

A few weeks ago I wrote about the lousy PA system we have. To reiterate how lousy it is, my dad jimmy rigged one of our mics with tissue so that the inner cord wouldn't make so much noise whenever somone moved the mic. (Yikes!)

In an effort to upgrade us, I did some research and ended up buying a Shure SM58. I was all excited because I just knew this would be the end of our technical problems. And then I found out that the amp we're using for vocals is actually a guitar amp. No wonder the sound isn't great! Now we have these nice mics and still sound like crap.

Clearly, this is why churches have technical staff who specialize in AV. Small churches like mine don't have this luxury. I have no idea what we need - other than Jesus. I have a friend who DJs, so now I'm gonna ask him for his advise cuz we gotta get our stuff together.

I decree that in 2017, I will not be posting about our mic system. In Jesus's name!

Trey McLaughlin "Let Praises Rise" (Cover)

Yo, this video is so dope. They sound amazing! Trey - you just got a new subbie.

Enjoy!

I Love This Place Tasha Cobbs

I purchased this album when it first came out and even though I thought it was nice, I wasn't exactly feeling it. Now, this song has been on repeat in my spirit. "Thank you for accepting me...." What a simple yet profound statement!
Enjoy!

3 pointers for those not on the praise team

I'm totally convinced that our district congregation is wack. Yep, I said it.

Recently we had a great P&W set. (Yes I'm tooting my horn - beep, beep!) Definitely the best of our last three, but somehow there was still some wackness going on within the congregation.

I'm not gonna even waste my brain cells trying to figure out why the audience was half dead, but here are some pointers for all of you who are not on a praise team.

• The best way to kill a service is by not participating. You don't have to be able to sing to make a joyful noise. You can lift your hands, wave your hands, sway, dance, clap, smile, etc. These are all ways to participate. There's nothing worse than looking at an audience of blank or angry faces.
• When you're excited about something, you don't sit all the way in the back. You don't have to be on the front row, but sitting on the periphery is a sign of where you are mentally and dare I say spiritually.
• Get over yourself and your issues. You are not responding to the praise team, per se. Praise and worship is your time to connect with God. Quit looking at the praise leaders as performers or as people in general who you may or may not even like. It's not about the praise team. It is about your response to God. We are mere conduits/facilitators.

There was a really popular secular song out a few years ago that had this really catchy line: "if you ain't got no money take your broke $%% home!"  Basically, don't try to kick it if you can't afford it. You'll kill everyone's good time trying to hang out when you're worried about keeping it cheap. That's kinda how I feel about P&W these days. If you didn't come to church to praise God maybe you should just stay home. (And please don't start thinking "well, sometimes people just need to hear a word or get prayer.") We need to quit coming to church to get something. This is not a welfare line.

So yeah...it's not always the praise team or the soloist or the preacher; it's you.

Mic check 1-2, 1-2

Sunday's praise and worship set was brought to you by epic fail.

For the second Sunday in a row my mics were crappy. And not just mediocre crappy, like might as well not have mics crappy.

The first crappy mic Sunday was because we had a rehearsal earlier in the week with a different set of people and did not readjust the settings. This Sunday's crappy mic was because the DJ and my dad decided to start twisting knobs all willey-nilley during the actual praise set without waiting to hear what it sounded like. Had they waited, they would've known that I had already adjusted them to my liking before church started. Or had they been in the sanctuary prior to church starting they would've seen me do the mic check. ijs

If you really want to ensure your P&W set starts off on the right foot, you gotta make sure you're doing everything within your power to have everything in place: team members there on time, mics checked, songs selected/rehearsed. The less you leave to chance, the better.

If I come back next week saying this happened 3 Sundays in a row, it's gone be some problems.

Stay tuned.

One and done

The Stellar Awards used to be one of the highlights of the year for me when I was growing up. I remember making a whole night of it. This year's Stellar's just came on Sunday and to be quite honest, I just watched Celebration of Gospel last month and have thus surpassed my quota for the amount of awards shows I plan to watch this year. (This coming from someone who didn't watch the Oscars, SAG awards, BET Honors, or any other ridiculously long show featuring today's top entertainers/talent/intellects.) I guess I should've held out for the show that honors gospel music artists rather than the one that showcases talent (even though both line-ups were about the same).

The other thing is, if you're following your favorite artists on social media, you already know who won what.

In case you're not in the know, here's the link to see all of this year's winners.


Blessings

Why I loved Celebration of Gospel (much to my surprise)

I'm not a big awards show fan. You end up watching to see 2 or 3 of your favorite artists and the rest of the 40 hours is spent hearing from people you're just not that into. For me, it's not worth the amount of time invested in front of the tube.

For this reason I had not planned to watch BET's Celebration of Gospel. It's not an awards show, but it's the same type of deal. Sure, most of the artists have a song that I like, but I'm an equal opportunity hater so I wasn't going to automatically watch just because COG is a gospel show. (Hopefully that shows I have integrity. lol) Nonetheless, I happend to be flipping through channels and ended up watching the last half and really enjoyed it.

I LOVE that the show is about celebrating gospel. This isn't the "if you're saved and you know it clap your hands" show. This is the "if you love gospel music and you know it clap your hands." I love that pop culture celebrities, R&B, and hip hop artists are there - some of which are performing to rep their love for gospel and the message that it brings. Honestly, most black artists got their start in church. Let's celebrate that! So cheers to Taraji P. Hensen, Chaka Khan, Tank, Bryshere Gray, et. al for participating. Everyone was making a joyful noise.

I love that COG is an opportunity for pop artists to show that they do indeed listen to, enjoy, and recognize the talents of gospel artists. Y'all know one can sing like church folk! Yasssss Tamela Mann, Yolanda Adams, and Jessica Reedy (she sounded phenomenal!) And in case pop celebs' fans didn't know they believe in an almighty God - now they know.

COG also shows that gospel is not just a traditional church choir. Hello Travis Greene and Kirk Franklin. We have a message and a sound for lovers of music and it doesn't only consist of old classics like "I-iiiiii love the Lord, he heard my cry-yyy-yyyyyy."

I love that COG is a platform for the gospel community to worship together and commemorate our legends. The Andre Crouch tribute was really nice. Shout out to Be Be Winans!

Finally, I love that others can hear the true message of gospel thanks to songs like Worth by Anthony Brown and Group thereAPy.

So Kudos, BET, for getting it right and keeping it classy... this time. :)

P.S. If you missed Celebration of Gospel 2016 and want to check out the performances here's the link.

He Loves Us - Immeasurable

Here's a great song to add to your praise team's repertoire. I love their voices!

All Of My Help - Geoffrey Golden

Here's a nice, simple, mid-tempo song suitable for praise teams everywhere. I plan to check out more from Geoffrey Golden.

What had happened was...

It's almost the end of the year and time to answer the question of whether or not I accomplished my goals with my praise team in 2015.

My main goal was to make the praise team a priority. Did I do that? Yes and no.  I definitely stopped working with the youth department to try to focus. That helped. We had some rehearsals, but the last half of the year we really dropped the ball. I could go into all the excuses, but they don't seem change: conflicts with work schedules killed us. When rehearsals stop, that's the death of a praise team.

My main objective was to get 12 new or retired songs back into our play list. Did we do it? Not exactly. I think we successfully added ~ 3 or 4. Wamp wamp waaaamp!

Not exactly a stellar year, but there were moments of greatness and things are looking up. We finally got a musician. Somehow, my younger brother decided to get off his end and take lessons from my older brother. He's learned about 6 songs and he's really coming along. I'm confident that next year we'll be able to retire our tracks. Gloray!!! We also debuted one of the songs I wrote and then the district praise team sang it as well. Finally, last Sunday someone mentioned wanting to join the team.

Needless to say, we have long way to go. Becoming consistent with rehearsals is going to be my main focus for 2016. No more excuses.

Here's to wishing all of us a triumphant 2016 with our praise teams!

Cheers!

Jessica Love ft. Todd Dulaney "I Draw Near"

I heard this song for the first time today and couldn't wait to share it. Enjoy!

I love me some hymns (in my Toni Braxton voice)

Don't you just love it when you go to church and the leader says, "turn to page 109 of your hymnal and let's sing I Come to the Garden Alone"? Man, I love me some hymns!

The funny thing is, the church I came from, didn't sing them as they were written. We remixed them until they sounded Pentecostal. And then when I went to a predominately white church down south and heard how they were really written, I was like "Oh, that's kinda lame."

You know what else is funny about hymns, everybody uses the lyrics. I've heard preachers preach hymns and singers ad lib using hymns. They're like the Christian version of Kyle Korver. You pull them off the bench and it's a score! (Go Bulls! I know KK is with the Hawks now.)

The other thing that's funny is that no one is really coming up with new hymns. I'm not sure why. Total Praise by Richard Smallwood made it in the New National Baptist Hymnal, but I can't think of very many other game changing, tried and true, new songs. And Total Praise is like 20 years old so I guess it's not new. Then again, I'm not a hymnal connoisseur. Maybe there are more.

So, why aren't we making new songs that fit in this genre? These are the songs we sing at funerals to comfort families, at Christmas to celebrate the true meaning of the holiday, and during worship services to reflect on the many aspects of God. I think it's time to dust off those books and bring them back en vogue.

I pitched long ago that we should have an "old school" Sunday where we give the hymns some play. After all, these oldies but goodies deserve their props, much like Kyle Korver.

Insecurity issues

I must admit I have issues as a lead worshiper.

I am an average singer. Don't have a great vibrato. Have average range. Don't always sing from my diaphram. I also don't think quick on my feet and my voice sometimes goes out when its hot in my church and the fans are on full throttle. But the average singer thing is my main issue.

It is extremely easy to be intimidated as a lead worshiper when you can't blow. I wish I could rip and run across the scale, but that isn't my strong suit. I love singers who run effortlessly, but that's often the measure we hold everyone by. At least in black church culture. Why is that?

As I've grown in my Christian journey, one of the things I'm more cognizant of is not being wooed by rhymes, runs, and physical attractiveness of something or even an edifice. This goes for a sermon, as well as the music. We (including myself) have got to move past some of the superficial stuff and get to the heart of worship. Don't get me wrong, it's hard to go in when things are pitchy, but it shouldn't be easy to go in just because of someone's ability to sound like Beyonce. (No shade... I love Halo! :)

I may not be able to do the Jason Nelson warm up challenge, but dang it, do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do ain't never hurt nobody. That, I can do all day, every day.

Blessings

P.S. Go on Instagram and check out Jason Nelson's warm up challenges. Some of these people are dope and some are just flat out funny.

Travis Greene - Living Water (starring Kel Mitchell)

Review of Tasha Cobb's One Place Live

I don't do a lot of reviews because it's rare that I purchase a full album. However, as a huge fan of Tasha Cobb's first album, I went ahead and purchased the sophomore project. Here's what I think of One Place Live:

1. Immediately- thumbs wayyy up!
2. Jesus Did It - eh
3. Fill Me Up - thumbs up
4. Overflow - thumbs up
5. Jesus Saves - eh
6. One Place - thumbs wayyyy up!
7. I love This Place - thumbs wayyy up!
8. This is Freedom - thumbs up
9. Sense It - thumbs wayyy up!
10. Sense It Reprise - thumbs wayyy up! This is battling for my favorite song on the album. "I am not the same, I've been changed in Your glory." Such simple and beautiful lyrics that anyone can sing.
11. Put a Praise on It - eh Shocked that I didn't like this song more. I like the concept of the song, but it's just Ok for me. I also can't differentiate between Tasha and Kierra. That's kinda strange too.
12. Christmas Praise - thumbs up
13. I'll Do It Again - thumbs wayyy up! This song reminds me of an old school Kirk Franklin and the Family type of song. I love hearing the individual voices even though they're all singing together.
14. Solid Rock - thumbs wayyy up! Love Jamie Grace's voice.
15. You Still Love Me - thumbs up
16. I Will Run - thumbs up This song has a rock vibe and Tasha pulls it off well

Bottom Line - I don't dislike any of the songs and I love 4 of them. Buy this album.

Blessings!