StepFWD Gospel News
20 YEARS OF IMPACT: 10 PEOPLE WHO SHAPED UK GOSPEL MUSIC
Ryan J Bruce names 10 individuals he believes have played a pivotal role in moving the UK gospel scene forward from 2006 to the present day
I suspect this list may cause a few debates and perhaps a strongly worded WhatsApp message, so let me get something out of the way. This is not a list of ‘The 10 Greatest UK Gospel Artists’ or ‘The 10 Greatest Christians’, who have helped gospel music over the last 20 years.
Instead, I wanted to recognise 10 Christians who, in my opinion, have played a significant role in progressing UK Gospel over the past two decades through platforms, artist development, documentation, mainstream visibility or industry infrastructure.
There are obviously plenty of people who could make a case for inclusion, and somebody’s favourite will likely be missing. That does not automatically mean I forgot them.
Putting this list together reminded me that the scene has probably progressed more than we sometimes give it credit for. Major gaps remain in infrastructure, investment, mainstream support and artist development. But, compared to 2006, we’ve come a pretty long way!
And, before anybody emails Keep The Faith, asking why their favourite person is not on here, please remember the title said 10, not ‘Top 10’. Plus, I had to stop somewhere!!!
YINKA AWOJOBI
Founder, UKGospel.com
Long before Instagram pages became the default news source for practically everything, UKGospel.com was documenting British gospel music online. Founded by Yinka Awojobi in the early 2000s, the platform has spent much of the last two decades covering artists, releases, events and wider developments across the scene. Independent gospel media has historically carried a disproportionate responsibility for documenting the genre, mainly because mainstream music media rarely pays much attention unless something particularly significant happens. Platforms like UKGospel.com, therefore, became important archives of what was actually taking place.
And anybody who ran an independent music website during the pre-social media era knows this required a level of dedication bordering on unreasonable. You had to source the stories, write them (with no help from ChatGPT!), upload them, maintain the website and, somehow, convince people to actually visit it. Yinka did that consistently.
Twenty years later, UKGospel.com remains part of British Gospel’s transition into the digital age.
Visit www.ukgospel.com
MERCY B
Founder, Time2Shine
At a time when the market for TV talent competitions was booming, Mercy B took the concept and created something specifically for gospel music with the launch of Time2Shine Gospel Talent Search. First airing in 2011 on the now-defunct Sky Television channel OHTV! and just one year after The X Factor reached its peak viewership, Time2Shine gave emerging gospel singers an opportunity to develop, perform and compete before a live audience. This gave new UK Gospel talent something the scene has historically struggled to provide consistently: a grassroots national discovery platform.
Whatever your personal feelings are about talent competitions, Time2Shine was a major financial undertaking for an independent gospel platform with no corporate sponsorship. So, while UK Gospel spent years talking about needing more platforms, Mercy ‘put her money where her mouth is’. Granted, none of the show’s winners went on to make particularly significant waves within gospel music, but that may say more about the wider infrastructure around them. There were still relatively few places for emerging gospel artists to go next, and perhaps too much expectation was placed on Time2Shine to carry contestants beyond the competition.
O’NEIL DENNIS
Founder, AStepFWD
O’Neil Dennis founded AStepFWD, which has developed the UK Christian Chart, the StepFWD Awards, and numerous other initiatives focused on promoting, recognising and documenting UK Christian & Gospel Music. Perhaps the biggest development has been AStepFWD’s recent work with the Official Charts Company to establish a Christian & Gospel Singles Chart, further expanding the presence of both genres in a space where it historically lacked significant industry measurement and recognition. For years, UK Gospel has not had reliable data to properly measure what is happening within the genre. We have often relied on statements such as “This song is doing really well” without much data to explain exactly what “really well” means. AStepFWD’s charts gave us more meaning behind those kinds of statements. There is probably not another independent industry body in the UK with anywhere close to as much data on UK Gospel songs as AStepFWD.
Visit www.astepfwd.com
MARCIA DIXON MBE
Publisher, Keep The Faith magazine; Founder, MD PR
Full disclosure, writing about the editor of the very magazine this article is appearing in might appear biased. However, leaving Marcia Dixon off a list like this simply because of that would probably be the real injustice. For decades, Marcia has worked across journalism, PR and events, writing extensively about gospel music and Britain’s Black Christian community through Keep The Faith and The Voice, whilst handling publicity for countless artists, churches, concerts and Christian organisations. UK Gospel has never had an abundance of mainstream media coverage, so specialist journalists and publications have often documented much of our own history. Marcia has spent years making sure the artists, events and stories within this space actually get covered.
Visit www.keepthefaith.co.uk
KAREN GIBSON MBE
Director, The Kingdom Choir
It would be almost impossible to discuss major UK Gospel moments from the last 20 years without mentioning 19 May 2018, when Karen Gibson MBE led The Kingdom Choir in their performance at the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The performance placed a British gospel choir at the centre of one of the biggest global television events of the decade. For the record, Karen’s contribution did not begin at Windsor Castle. Gibson had already spent years directing choirs within British Gospel before most of the world knew her name. That moment, however, took UK Gospel somewhere it is infrequently afforded the opportunity to exist: right in the middle of a major British cultural institution, with the world watching. The Kingdom Choir subsequently signed with Sony Music and toured internationally.
Visit www.kingdomchoir.com
BAZIL MEADE MBE
Co-founder, London Community Gospel Choir
Technically, Bazil Meade had already made a pretty substantial contribution to UK Gospel before the starting point of this list. Just a “small” one called the London Community Gospel Choir. Founded by Meade in 1982 alongside Lawrence Johnson, Bishop John Francis and Bishop Delroy Powell, LCGC helped pioneer the contemporary gospel choir movement in Britain and has spent decades carrying the sound beyond the traditional church environment. Part of what earns Bazil a place on a list covering 2006 to 2026 is the continued influence of that work. Throughout the past two decades, LCGC has continued performing on major stages and alongside some of the world’s biggest mainstream artists. In 2013, during LCGC’s 30th anniversary concert at the Royal Festival Hall, the choir set a new Guinness World Record for the most people performing gospel music indoors. To date, I believe they are the only act representing British Gospel in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Visit www.lcgc.co.uk
MUYIWA OLAREWAJU OBE
Station Director, Premier Gospel
Artist, presenter, broadcaster, executive. Muyiwa Olarewaju apparently decided one job within gospel music simply was not enough. While he has enjoyed a successful career as an artist, becoming the only act to represent British Gospel on BET’s former Celebration of Gospel broadcast, his work with Premier Gospel is perhaps even more important when discussing the wider progress of the genre. Muyiwa became Station Director of Premier Gospel at its launch in 2010, helping lead what has become the most popular broadcasting platform for gospel music in Britain. Mainstream radio support for gospel remains limited, particularly for British artists, meaning dedicated broadcasters have played a crucial role in keeping the genre visible. For more than 15 years, Muyiwa has established and overseen one of the biggest of those platforms. Add his own accomplishments as an internationally recognised UK Gospel artist and I think his inclusion here is pretty difficult to argue against.
Visit www.premiergospel.org.uk
CHIBUZO OKORO
Director, HFP Music
One thing UK Gospel has certainly never lacked is talent. Infrastructure around that talent is another conversation. Through HFP Music, Chibuzo Okoro has helped build an independent Christian music company offering support across A&R, distribution, publishing administration, branding, marketing, management, touring, legal support, funding, analytics and revenue collection. That work is especially important in UK Gospel, where artists have often worn far too many hats because the specialist infrastructure around them has been limited. His involvement in the development of CalledOut Music is perhaps the clearest example of what that support can lead to. CalledOut, whose monthly Spotify listenership consistently outperforms several of his US peers, including Erica Campbell, Kierra Sheard and Pastor Mike Jr, has grown from an emerging UK gospel artist into an internationally recognised act with a considerable audience across Africa, the US and Europe.
Visit www.hfp-music.com
ANU OMIDEYI
Festival Director, Liverpool Gospel Music Festival
Anu Omideyi has worn quite a few hats within UK Gospel over the years, including serving as Chief Executive of the Gospel Music Industry Alliance. More recently, her work in Liverpool has introduced an important new piece to the landscape. As Festival Director of the Liverpool Gospel Music Festival and through her work with the National Gospel Music Centre, Anu has helped create a platform combining live gospel music, education, heritage and artist development. The festival, launched in 2023, is particularly notable for positioning gospel within a mainstream festival environment, rather than restricting it exclusively to the church circuit. Anu’s work surrounding gospel heritage is equally important here. We have a slightly unfortunate habit within UK Gospel of making history and then doing a terrible job of documenting it. Projects disappear, websites vanish, recordings become impossible to find and eventually somebody has to explain an important event with “I think it happened around 2004”. Creating infrastructure that celebrates gospel’s present and preserves its history is something we need considerably more of.
Visit www.liverpoollighthouse.com/lgmf
LORRAINE WRIGHT MBE
Founder, University Gospel Choir of the Year
In 2011, Lorraine Wright founded the University Gospel Choir of the Year (UGCY), creating a national platform for university gospel choirs across Britain to compete and perform. UGCY has since become an established fixture within UK Gospel and, in my opinion, its wider impact is probably bigger than the competition itself. University gospel choirs provide an entry point into the genre for hundreds, if not thousands, of young people, including plenty who may not otherwise interact with the traditional gospel scene. From those choirs come singers, musicians, directors, future artists and new audiences, and that creates something every genre needs: a pipeline. It is easy to focus exclusively on whoever is successful right now but building platforms that continually introduce new people into the ecosystem is arguably just as important. More than a decade after its launch, UGCY (now run by AStepFWD) has done exactly that.
Visit www.ucgy.co.uk
RYAN J BRUCE
Music biz consultant and author of The Future-Proof Artist. Follow on Instagram @iam_ryanj
