Has the gospel industry lost it?

By Magda Kanjejo

It seems that the gospel scene in Kenya has a new kid on the block after the self-declared Kenya’s number one hype man, DNG, came out on Facebook two weeks ago admitting his return to salvation and committing his life back to Christ.

Davidson Ndambuki started off as a secular artist back in 2003 before joining the gospel world in 2004 and winning the hearts of many people through his music. He managed to bag the prestigiousKora award (2004).

But even with all the success, he still slipped back to the secular world until a fortnight, when as they say, the lost sheep finally returned home.

During his venture back to the secular world, his music career took a major blow because most of the songs he did either flopped or never managed to top the charts. He was, however, able to build some of his own brands: La Familia and 254 Entertainment, which have both turned out to be very successful.

The trend of  secular artists going gospel or ‘seeing the light’ is nothing new to the Kenyan audiences as we have witnessed it through other artists such as DNA and Bamboo .

The line between gospel and “secular” music industries has continued to grow thinner by the day as gospel artists try their best to “sing for” Jesus” while maintaining the same secular taste (if you know what I mean).

One of the many tricks I have come to hate is using riddim beats, reggae sound effects and venues among others which they then synchronize them with their own song lyrics to attract audiences;

Catchy rhymes that you can hardly hear a word, dancers and dance routines is another way the gospel industry is copy-pasting from the “world”.

This new style of music has, however, led to a lot of mixed reactions from fans as one put it: “since when did gospel music stop making you want to praise the lord to making you want to take your clothes off?” All we hope for is that the music gets to pass the message intended and not to get people “naked”, but one thing is for sure gospel music is here to stay.

First published in January 2013.