(Photo: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)
Christian Post Report – Gospel artist Kirk Franklin holds his awards for Best Gospel Album and Best Gospel Song “Hello Fear” at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, February 12, 2012.
Kirk Franklin won his eighth Grammy Award on Monday but is not letting the high honor define who he is.
The 46-year-old gospel music artist, songwriter and producer won an award for Best Gospel Performance/Song with, “Wanna Be Happy?” In accepting the award, the veteran gospel music star brought fellow nominees Anthony Brown, Travis Greene, Jonathan McReynolds and Brian Courtney Wilson to the stage with him.
“I’m so proud of all of my gospel music family today at the Grammys,” Franklin wrote on Twitter. “It celebrates what we do, but never defines who we are.”
Although Franklin received an honor for his song “Wanna Be Happy” featured on his “Losing My Religion” album released late last year, he admitted to having anxiety about releasing the record. The artist was worried that it may not be received well.
“To be transparent, that’s what took me so long to do the album. A lot of it was fear, and then I really began to learn that spiritually fear is a form of pride,” Franklin revealed to The Christian Post last year. “It was pride that I would never be able to live up to ‘I Smile.’ I would tend to just kind of stay away, because I was scared of not being accepted like I was with ‘I Smile.'”
In a 2014 interview with CP, Franklin made it clear that he was not creating music to receive any accolades.
“I’m always trying to find innovative ways to be able to keep God famous,” Franklin said. “For all the properties I’m involved in, that’s been my agenda. I think that sometimes we have compromised quality content for the fear of Christianity and I think that they both can co-exist.”
The musician seems to have mastered the art of creating quality gospel music for two decades and insisted that the most important quality in the music is sincerity.
“It should reflect wherever we are and our personal spiritual growth with God. If that’s not our top priority, then our artform is going to be very shallow,” Franklin said. “It should not be just for the sole purpose of the artform itself..if it’s that, we’ll suffer. We have to make sure people can feel the sincerity of our own testimony and our own journey so they know this is something that is really real for us.”
He believes gospel music should be in tune with the culture of the world instead of focusing solely on the church.
“People don’t live at church, they live in the real world. So music has to reflect that how people live, what they’re doing as they go through their trials in life,” he previously told CP. “So I just hope and pray that we’re always able to tap into that and be that voice for people.”
Source : Christian Post