Kirk Franklin
Arguably the best selling Gospel artist of all time and the artist who has pushed Gospel the farthest into the mainstream is Multiple Grammy Award and Stellar Award-winning singer, songwriter, musician, and producer Kirk Franklin. He was a 1970s Ft. Worth, Texas child prodigy who got his start playing piano, directing choirs and writing songs for the recording choirs like the Dallas Ft. Worth Mass Choir.
He became a household name as a Gospel recording artist in the early 1990s when his 1993 cross-over hit, “Why We Sing” from the album, Kirk Franklin and The Family (GospoCentric/Sparrow) hit Gospel and Urban radio airwaves.
The album stayed on the charts for roughly two years and became the first million-selling Gospel album. His most controversial hit was the single “Stomp”Ā from the collaborative project God’s Property from Kirk Franklin‘s Nu Nation (B-Rite) which featured rapper Cheryl “Salt”Ā James from popular rap duo, Sal-N-Pepa. The video was one of the first Gospel clips to receive heavy rotation on MTV. It also charted on Billboard’s Gospel, Urban and Top 40 charts.
The Multiple Grammy Award and Stellar Award winner recorded hit music with singing ensembles The Family, God’s Property (both relationships ended with lawsuits against Franklin) and 1 NC up until 2000. Since then he’s recorded as a solo artist.
Franklin’s hit list of cross-over music includes the Pop/Gospel/Urban collaboration “Lean on Me,”Ā featuring R. Kelly, Mary J. Blige, Bono of U2 and Crystal Lewis from the CD The Nu Nation Project (1998), “Melodies From Heaven” from What “ĖCha Looking For (1994), “Now Behold The Lamb” from Kirk Franklin and The Family Christmas (199,) “Joy” featuring Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir from the soundtrack of the movie The Preacher’s Wife; “Looking For You” and “Imagine Me” from Hero (2005), “Declaration (This Is It)”Ā off Fight of My Life (2007) and “I Smile” from his latest CD, Hello Fear.
