by Amber Travis | Mar 7, 2016 | Feature |
For more than 30 years, the Stellar Gospel Music Awards has captivated viewers everywhere, and this year was no different. The 31st annual awards show was full of comedy—thanks to co-hosts Rickey Smiley and Sherry Shepherd—legendary guest appearances, and of course, music, while honoring some of the greatest gospel artists in the world. And while the entire show was entertaining from start to finish, continue reading for some of the highlights during the greatest night in gospel music:
The Year of the Fellas
The men of gospel definitely showed up and showed out last night with everything from eccentric attire (yeah, we see you, Charles Jenkins) to memorable performances by Brian Courtney Wilson, William McDowell, and the legendary Brat Pack, including Donald Lawrence, Hezekiah Walker, and Ricky Dillard. The trio took the stage to honor the late O’Landa Draper, who received the Allstate James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award for performing hits such as “Gotta Feelin’” and “My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord.” But the brightest star of the night was Anthony Brown, who took home a record-breaking 10 Stellar Awards, including Song of the Year and Artist of the Year!
A Night of Living Legends
We literally don’t know where to start while recapping an evening filled with some of the biggest names in gospel music! In addition to special appearances by Shirley Caesar and Bobby Jones, artists including Karen Clark Sheard and Donnie McClurkin also graced us with performances. For the second year in a row, some of our favorite gospel legends were also honored for their contribution to the genre. They included Jonathan Slocumb, Yolanda Adams, Marvin Sapp, and Tramaine Hawkins. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, Mr. Kirk Franklin rounded out the evening’s line-up with a finale performance of his latest hit, “Wanna Be Happy.”
New Sound, New Generation
Although the awards show was filled with gospel veterans, the Stellar rookies were definitely effective in making their presence known. Not only did newcomer Casey J. perform her smash hit “Fill Me Up God,” but the songbird was nominated for an astounding 11 Stellars and walked away with the New Artist of the Year award for “The Truth,” which reached #1 on the Billboard Gospel Charts! And as if we hadn’t seen enough, Travis Greene rocked the stage during a candid and heartfelt performance for his Stellar Awards debut.
Visit the official website of the Stellar Gospel Music Awards for a complete list of last night’s winners.
What were some of your favorite moments from the 2016 Stellar Awards? Share them below.
by UrbanFaith.com | Mar 1, 2016 | Feature |
Photo Credit: Joost J. Bakker
by C.O. of IDOL King
27 years ago, Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing” exploded into theaters, taking a hard look at the racially charged atmosphere of a close-knit Brooklyn neighborhood that led to the tragic death of one of the main characters at the hands of police. In the current strained environment of urban cities across the country, it can seem as though life is imitating art. The question posed by the movie to those who were facing injustice was will you do nothing, or will you do the right thing?
As inequity of all forms appears to reign without restraint, the current generation is confronted with a similar challenge. But for most, the uncertainty doesn’t lie in whether or not they should do the right thing. Nearly all agree that you should do the right things, but does it have to be for the right reasons?
Pioneering Holy Hip Hop artist “C.O.”, best known for being the creative and founding force behind the trailblazing rap group IDOL King, contends that real influence produces transformed lives and not just trend followers. “This only happens when the motives behind the ‘right things’ we do are aligned with God’s intentions, or in other words, the right reasons,” he says.
Committed to creating rhymes that champion Christ as the answer to today’s societal ills, C.O. spells out a few of those right reasons:
Photo Courtesy of C.O.
Empower others to Recognize God’s Love is Tough Love
The truth hurts, but it also heals. The touchy-feely response of some members of the Body of Christ to injustice has too often produced a view of love that accommodates our prejudices rather than eliminates them. “God’s love absolutely comforts the afflicted, but it also afflicts the comfortable,” C.O. reminds. While it doesn’t feel great to personally confront racism, it must happen to prevent the church from being a weak and ineffective voice in the current struggle for dignity.
Equip Others to Be Diplomatic And Direct
A diplomat is someone who sensitively and effectively deals with situations based on valid information. If we are unaware of the full counsel of God’s word, including what He has to say about discrimination, we will only be capable of offering a partial solution. Real diplomacy occurs when we present Christ while directly confronting the often glossed over the sin of racism.
Encourage Others to Increase Biblical Convictions
What are our convictions based on? Is it God’s word, the stereotypes, and prejudices we were raised with, or what we see flashing on the nightly news? Thankfully, God’s word shines a light on our faulty assumptions. The gift of truth is right in front of us – and needs to be taught in our churches and reinforced by our artists. We can’t afford to plead ignorance to the damage that racism still causes.
It is right to stand up, it is right to insist on the freedom we are promised in Christ. But it becomes righteous when our reasoning matches the motives of God. Yes, let’s do the right thing, but let’s make sure it’s for the right reasons.
Check out C.O.’s latest lyric video “ZOMBIES” at www.officialidolking.co
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To continue the conversation with Christian rap pioneer C.O., follow him on twitter @idolking1985 or connect with him on Facebook and Instagram.
by Ramon Mayo | Feb 11, 2016 | Feature, Headline News |
Racism seems to be a proverbial boogey man under America’s bed. When activists and spokesmen against racism cry out, they are usually met with the same suspicion as a young toddler who claims there is a monster under the bed.
“Okay, son. Let’s check this out. See, there’s no monster under the bed. Go to sleep. Everything is fine.”
Those who point to racist acts, or a racist system, are summarily dismissed and encouraged to go along and get along with the times. After all we are living in a post-racial America.
Something about this strikes a subtle but dissonant chord among the many who see racism interwoven throughout our political and economic system.
Not only that, but it is also seen in the outright and unmistakable acts of terror committed against people of color in general and African Americans specifically.
A General Overview
For example, from 1999 to 2014 there were over seventy unarmed Black citizens murdered at the hands of the police. Some of these people were criminals or had a criminal record. Others were ordinary, upstanding citizens who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time—and the wrong color.
These people were objects of a racist-tinged system that immediately perceives Black as bad, no good, and evil. Many were just in the wrong place at the wrong time but that has something to do with their Blackness and being at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Their social location made them casualties of war.
So, there’s that. And then we come to the highest appointment in the land and in the world: The Office of President of the United States. From the beginning of the campaign until now, President Barack Obama has been suspected of being everything from an undercover Muslim extremist to the Antichrist and leader of the One World Government.
Now, every president that has been in office in my lifetime has been accused of being the Antichrist, but the first Black president has been accused of not only being a Muslim extremist but also not being a citizen of the United States.
No one questioned any of his predecessors’ citizenships. They only questioned his, because he did not fit into the neat “WASP” (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) category that so many of our commanders-in-chief have in the past. The last one who didn’t, John F. Kennedy, was shot. Hmmm…
Racism is now seen as the conspiracy theory that Black people rely on when things don’t go their way. The truth is things do not go anybody’s way all the time.
We live in a world of pain and suffering. Ever since the fall of man, our world has been plagued by failure and disaster.
Job put it simply that man who is born of a woman is of few days and full of suffering (Job 14:1). On the other hand, Black people in America and around the globe have had more than just a few days of suffering.
When a group of people as a whole are met with oppression and made to be scapegoats for 500 years, then that’s not the everyday suffering of an individual but the collective oppression of racism. It’s not that everyone’s racist.
Believe me, I have better things to do than play the victim and go around blaming people for attitudes that I can’t see. That’s not how I roll. No racist blaming here. What I focus on is this: racism is not dead.
Racism is an invented social hierarchy that is still in place today. You may not be racist but that doesn’t mean you are not affected by racism. Everyone is affected by it.
It has colored our view of the world so much that if you are directly or indirectly benefiting from it, you can’t see it. It’s those who are affected by it that see it best.
The Proof is in the Facts
It’s hard not to notice that one out of five African American applicants face discrimination at job interviews.
It’s hard not to notice that when a company receives a resume with a “Black-sounding” name, the applicant is 50% less likely to get a call back than one with the same credentials but a “White-sounding” name.
It’s hard not to notice that Black drivers are twice as likely to get pulled over by the police than White drivers. It’s hard not to notice that Black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated than Whites.
It’s hard not to notice these statistics…unless they do not affect you.
As a Black man, I see that police murdered 70 unarmed Black citizens within the last fifteen years and it alarms me and scares me and makes me think: that could’ve been me.
I see that, even after careful research done on the people of ancient Egypt and the genetics of the first humans, a movie focusing on those times such as Noah or Gods of Egypt can depict only White men being in power. So, when I walk into a room I’m not seen as someone who can lead but someone who will be on the bottom.
I see that the median wealth of White households is 13 times more than the wealth of Black households since the Great Recession of 2007 and I have to ask myself, “How did we get here in the first place?”
A Historical Context
Well, way back in the 15th century when the European world was being awakened to the vast riches and natural resources beyond its borders, the then mostly Christian nations of the time needed a theory. They needed a theory that allowed them to justify them subjugating and oppressing those who were “other.”
Out of that need for a theory racism was born. A social hierarchy was created where the fair-skinned people were on top and those who were darker were on the bottom.
Out of this social hierarchy came slavery, genocide, colonialism and the conquest and rape of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It’s not pretty but it’s something that we have to deal with.
This same social hierarchy persisted into the Jim Crow era. It gave license to separate but unequal schools, housing, health care, jobs, and anything else you could think of. It gave a blank check to the Ku Klux Klan terrorism and lynching.
This same hierarchy is embedded in the fabric of our nation.
It can be seen in the mass incarceration of African Americans.
It can be seen in the huge gap in African Americans being hired for tech jobs.
This hierarchy creates a subconscious bias against people of color. It causes us to unknowingly—and knowingly—give in to stereotypes. We write our screenplays and vote a certain way because of this hierarchy that has influenced people for over 500 years.
You can’t just get rid of something like that without sustained, focused effort.
Renewing of the Mind
It is the kind of stronghold and a principality that Paul talks about in his letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 6:12). It’s bigger than just individuals.
In the same letter Paul says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood.” Racism is bigger than people. It is a cultural force that has swept America up in its path.
In his book Brainwashed, Tom Burrell talks about the powerful propaganda campaign that has been executed to perpetuate the myth of Black inferiority. He states that, as a Black man, he is personally repulsed, but as an advertising executive, he can’t help but admire the genius of the strategy.
Holding hands and singing “Kumbaya” can’t fix it. It takes a renewing of the mind and a casting out. It is a demon that sits in the haunted corners of our national psyche and it needs to be evicted.
Yes, America. You are possessed. There is an unclean spirit in you that has caused you to act against your better self. Its name is “racism.”
We can get rid of slavery and segregation, but until we get rid of racism, Laquan McDonalds will still get shot in the streets in cold blood.
People will still get called the N-word, even if they are the President of the United States. Our children will not have equal education and opportunities, and many African Americans will continue to hate themselves.
As long as racism is allowed a free pass while we hold to not being racist, then we are doomed. It’s bigger than you as an individual. And no, we are not making this up.
Let’s talk about it. What are your thoughts on racism in America? Do you believe that the solution begins with changing one’s current mindset?
by Ramon Mayo | Oct 16, 2015 | Feature, Headline News |
Twenty years ago black men converged in Washington, D.C., for a day of self-reflection and a commitment to be better. On October 10, they converged again for a demonstration marking the anniversary of the Million Man March. As usual whenever there is a move for black men to pull together for a positive purpose, there was very little said in the media. There was no hype. The major networks—even the major black network—said nothing. The one thing that did happen which happened 20 years ago is that some black men determined that they were going to live and act in a different way once they left the National Mall.
It was a day of atonement for black men. Called together by Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, black men from multiple denominations and backgrounds came together to repent for their sins and change their ways. The theme of the event was “Justice or Else!” Some of the same problems of injustice that propelled the 1995 march have continued to plague black America and issues such as police brutality have gained national attention in recent years.
The contrast between the full-blown media coverage of Ferguson and the riots in Baltimore in relation to the death of Freddie Gray and the scarce media coverage for the anniversary of the Million Man March is striking. There is something wrong with this picture. The media it seems is committed to a portrayal of black men as ignorant, aggressive, over-sexualized beasts. In contrast with that portrayal, there are black men all around America who every day are providing for their families, loving their women, and seeking justice. They are intelligent and aware of the need for change in their communities.
These are the men who are active in their churches and non-profit organizations. These are the men who refuse to call women out of their names. They are committed to teaching and raising the next generation. To be sure they don’t get a lot of publicity, but we know that they are there. No, they are not perfect, and they can be called out when they have gone astray. But know this: They are the heartbeat of their communities and they don’t do what they do for attention. They do it for love.
In 1 Kings 19:18, Elijah was told by God that He would leave seven thousand who had not bowed down to worship the pagan god Baal. In other words there was a remnant that remained faithful to God. The same could be said for black men who are committed to a better future for the African American community. They are a remnant—and the Million Man March and the marking of its anniversary are a witness to their existence even if the mainstream media doesn’t give them any airtime. As much as we see the negative portrayals of African American men in the media, we know there is a remnant that has not given up and succumbed to the darker demons of their nature. Although it doesn’t get a lot of attention, this is the reality we already know.
by Maisie Sparks, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Oct 7, 2015 | Feature |
If you had an old-school mom or grandma, you have probably heard her say, “Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to.” Back in the day, that pearl of wisdom often referred to drinking alcohol, taking drugs or participating in premarital sex. But today, it could just as well include taking out a loan for college.
More than 40 million Americans have a collective $1.2 trillion in student loan debt, higher than America’s credit card indebtedness[1]. This year’s graduating class is the most indebted class ever with the average 2015 graduate who has student loans leaving college with more than $35,000 in debt.[2] That’s enough money to purchase a new car for cash or make a hefty down payment on a home, something many graduates are forced to put off because they’re too loaded down with student loans.
When you look at student loan numbers for African-Americans, it’s even more disturbing. The U.S. student debt load falls disproportionately harder on African-Americans than whites. From 2000 to 2014, half of all African-American graduates left college with more than $25,000 in debt as compared to 34 percent of white graduates.[3] That’s a gap that will impact buying power and the accumulation of wealth for a lifetime. Even though more African-Americans are going to college, we’re also leaving with a financial burden that can follow borrowers for more than 20 years.[4]
The Bible says “the borrower is a slave to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). So, how do you go to a selective college without taking on a boat-load of debt and becoming a slave? The answer will call for you to start now to develop a strategy that excludes, or at the most, minimizes debt. Don’t let the place that historically has been a path to opportunity and upward mobility become a four-year descent into financial bondage.
Get good grades. Working hard to achieve excellent grades and test scores is your first defense against college debt. In fact, it’s your only leverage, especially if your family doesn’t have a lot of money to put toward college. Colleges want students who they think will succeed in their classrooms. Currently, the only measure of that is the academic success you’ve had in high school. Take the hardest courses in your school and do well. If your school offers Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, take as many as you can and do well. These courses can help you attain the scores you’ll need on tests like the PSAT that gets you considered for the National Merit Scholarship. National Merit Scholars, National Achievement Scholars and National Hispanic Recognition Program award recipients are often offered significant scholarships at state universities and private colleges. Use your knowledge to take College-Level Examinations (CLEP) that can help you earn college credit hours. With the average college credit hour costing $700 and a CLEP test costing $80, you can test out of many college courses, saving yourself time and money in college. Nearly 3,000 colleges and universities accept CLEP credits, so it’s worth identifying a few colleges that do when you’re putting together your list of college choices. Another smart move is to decide right now that you’ll complete college in four years, unless you’ll be in a special program that’s earning you a dual degree or an advanced degree, like doctor of pharmacy. Every additional year will cost additional money—money you might have to borrow. If you really want to cut costs, try finishing college in three and a half years and those CLEP tests can be a help with that.
Know the game changer. As important as academic achievements are, another factor that can help keep your student loan debt low or nonexistent is your school choice. Everyone wants to go to their dream school. But with college costs rising more than 1,100 percent over the past 30 years, your dream needs to include a scene that makes college affordable.[5]
Give yourself options. In the job market, one of the best situations to find yourself in is to have a couple of job offers at the same time. The same can be true about college. Don’t get hooked on one school. Have several schools that would work for you if the price is right. Do your homework, researching not only their curriculum, culture and campus, but also their costs, average loan debt, and work/study programs. Now, let’s say you’re accepted to two or three of these colleges. Look closely at the financial aid packages. If there’s anything there you don’t understand, especially whether something is a loan or a scholarship, call the college’s financial aid office and find out. Then ask yourself, can my family afford that? If not, talk with each college again to see what else they can do. It’s especially important to do this if your family’s financial circumstances have changed since you applied. It’s appropriate to do this if you have different award amounts from comparable colleges. Some colleges will “match” other colleges’ financial packages. Just be sure that what’s being matched or increased is scholarship and grant amounts, not loans. The college that you go to can be the largest funder of your college education when they want to be. Let them want you by your good grades, your examples of extracurricular involvement in high school, and your enthusiasm about attending their school.
Apply for other scholarships. If you still have an annual loan amount after working with the colleges, look for other scholarship and grant sources. You can potentially get scholarships and grants from your church, your high school, and local community and civic clubs. You have a higher probability of receiving financial assistance from these sources than random online scholarship websites. Talk to your high school counselor and people who have gone to college and ask them about additional funding opportunities.
Think about how you can spend your college summers to lower your educational costs. Use those summers to take some basic courses at a community college. There are many community colleges where the courses are well taught and less expensive. Just make sure these credits will be accepted by the college from which you will graduate. Many students choose the community college option for a couple of years and then transfer to a selective school. Just remember, if you plan to do this, you’ll now need to make those ever-important good grades at the community college, have some solid extracurricular activities, and a rationale for wanting to transfer to the new school.
Do everything you possibly can on the front end of your college education to keep the back end from being a financial shackle. Finishing college debt-free will make you one of the wisest students in your graduating class.
Maisie Sparks is a writer and author. Her newest book, 151 Things God Can’t Do, will be released on Oct. 27.
[1] http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/10/pf/college/student-loans/
[2] http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/08/congratulations-class-of-2015-youre-the-most-indebted-ever-for-now/
[3] http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/18/gallup-poll-black-college-students-more-likely-to-graduate-with-debt
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/oct/07/expensive-college-education-reinforces-racial-inequality-us-america
[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/cost-of-college-degree-increase-12-fold-1120-percent-bloomberg_n_1783700.html
by Christine A. Scheller | Sep 30, 2015 | Entertainment, Feature |
David Oyelowo plays Brian Nichols in Captive from Paramount Pictures.
Were it not for the superb acting of David Oyelowo and Kate Mara, the new film “Captive” could pass for an ordinary television crime drama. But it’s not ordinary. Not only are the acting, writing, and production above average for the faith genre, but the film is based on the remarkable true story of Ashley Smith, a young woman who talked her kidnapper into letting her go and turning himself in to police by reading to him from the Rev. Rick Warren’s international best-seller “The Purpose Driven Life.”
After seeing Oyelowo’s magisterial portrayal of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in “Selma,” one might wonder why he would co-star in a small film like this. Surely bigger opportunities had come knocking. “Captive” was filmed before “Selma,” Oyelowo told Urban Faith, but he would have done it anyway, because his motivation for telling both stories is the same.
“Even though I’m playing antithetical characters, Dr. King and then Brian Nichols in ‘Captive,’ both films hint at the fact that light shines brightest in the dark,” said Oyelowo.
Life-affirming stories like these are some of the kinds of stories he gravitates toward, he said. “Nightingale,” a one-man, 83-minute HBO film that premiered this spring, is loosely based on the true story of a mentally unstable veteran who murders his mother and lives with her body in their home while he tries, unsuccessfully, to reunite with a fellow soldier.
Oyelowo humanizes this sad character and illuminates difficult subject matter, just as he does in the other two films.
“My faith enables me to have a compassion that I may otherwise not have had in relation to the dark side of who we all are as people,” said Oyelowo, a devout Christian. “What makes us human is the fact that we are never just one thing. There is always a battle between the soul and the spirit. There is always a battle for ground between the darkness and the light within us.”
All three characters are “extreme examples of either the dark or the light, but they all have the complexity of what it is to be a human being within them,” he said. “They all have weaknesses and strengths, and those are what’s come to the fore predominantly for better or for the worst at any given time.”
Realistic portrayals of the human experience are what make these films resonate with audiences, Oyelowo said. “Even if you are not Dr. King or you are not Brian Nichols … there’s something to be gleaned from a human perspective in all those characters.”
Indeed. One reason “Captive” succeeds where other faith-based films fail is that both its villain and its heroine, Ashley Smith, are multifaceted. Smith, a young, widowed methamphetamine addict, had lost custody of her daughter and had once thrown away the book that would eventually save her life, and perhaps other lives as well.
In a recent interview with the Rev. Rick Warren, Smith said, “The only thing I did in my apartment that night was give God my brokenness. … When I finally gave it to him, he began to work and show off in my life. … It’s never too late to turn your life around. It’s never too late to let God work.”
Ten years after her captivity, Smith is sober, remarried, and has regained custody of her daughter. “Today I choose to walk with [God] and let him carry my burden,” she said.
Kate Mara plays Ashley Smith in Captive from Paramount Pictures.
Like millions of other people, Oyelowo has read “The Purpose Driven Life.” He said the book inspired him to believe that God had a bigger plan for him than he could have imagined. “As a person who is pretty ambitious and has big hopes and dreams for myself, it was kind of a big revelation for me. But when I then encountered this story, it sort of struck me that never was that truth that is expressed in the book truer than for Ashley Smith.”
Oyelowo said Smith told him she initially felt her kidnapping by a man who had murdered four other people before taking her captive was God’s way of saying to her, “You’ve messed up so much, you deserve death.” She never could have envisioned all that would come of her willingness to surrender to Him in that moment.
That God brought good from the situation does not erase the fact that four people lost their lives—among them, a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy, and a federal agent. The film is dedicated to those victims. Oyelowo doesn’t know if Nichols has seen it, but he said Nichols’ mother has and is “incredibly complimentary.” For a man who sees the potential for good and evil in all of us, her approval is a “relief.”
Unlike a lot of faith-based films, “Captive” does not feel like it is selling a product, even though passages from “The Purpose Driven Life” are read throughout. Perhaps this is only because, as a viewer, I knew this unlikely miracle actually happened.
Oyelowo said the filmmakers’ goal was simply to tell a good story.
“If your movie is agenda-ridden, whether it’s a horror movie or an action movie, whatever the kind of movie it is … it’s not good storytelling. Good storytelling is presenting things to the audience that enable them to project themselves into the situation and make decisions with the character as they’re going along,” said Oyelowo.
“Where I think films around faith have failed and the reason why they only appeal to a very niche and specific audience is because they lack complexity. They lack a degree of truthfulness in a sense. Anyone who has read the Bible will see that it’s an R-rated book, that it is a book full of darkness, full of complexity, full of the gray areas of life,” he said.
“What the Bible doesn’t do is glorify or glamorize those darknesses. It very much juxtaposes them with a possibility of light, but in a way that shows things in all their complexity–whether it’s David, Joseph, Ruth, Esther, or Jesus himself. You see the challenges these people faced and the fact that it wasn’t always pretty and it didn’t always have a happy ending. Moses didn’t get to go into the Promised Land. These are the things that I try to bring to storytelling, because I just see them to be the truth of what it is to be a human being on planet earth.”
This approach is why “Captive” is a cut above, and why we’ll keep watching David Oyelowo for many years to come.
Next up for the actor are “Five Nights in Maine,” a story about grief, with Dianne Wiest and Rosie Perez (it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this month) and “A United Kingdom” with Rosamund Pike, based on the true story of Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana, whose interracial marriage caused an international stir in the late 1940s.
Christine A. Scheller is an Urban Faith editor-at-large. She lives with her husband at the Jersey Shore and in Washington, DC.
