100 VOICES OF GOSPEL TAKEOVER BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT

Does the success of 100 Voices of Gospel point to a new wave of interest in gospel music?

As someone who is absolutely crazy about Gospel music it was great to see the success of 100 Voices of Gospel on Britain’s Got Talent.

12 million people tuned in to see them make it to 2016 live finals. Throughout the competition they drew massive praise from all of the judges. I think this was a major achievement.

For those of us from the Gospel community we are used to seeing big choirs on TV. In fact in the next couple of months we will begin shooting for the BBC Choir of the year where I have been a judge for 3 years and we are already in rehearsals for the BBC proms at the Royal Albert Hall which I am one of the headliners along with a huge mass choir, so we used to seeing choirs on TV.

What was new to the TV audience was the combination of traditional gospel standards combined with breakdancing and street dance and the sheer numbers of singers.

They have even managed to generate additional column inches, which is a further signs that you have made it, worth stories about them breaking Britain’s Got Talent rules because they have professional singers in their ranks. The Sunday people reported the following story:

“Unbeknown to the 12 million viewers who tuned we can reveal more than a third of the choir are professional and several already have their own recording contracts,

Some of the original members of the band were so tied-up with their commitments they were unable to take part in Simon Cowell’s show .

Now we can reveal all is not what it seems with Voices of Gospel.

Triplets in the group, called The Clement Brothers, had a music career in Indonesia and were believed to have been signed to Sony.

They now produce and sing professionally as a trio.

Group spokeswoman and former Wall Street lawyer Margeaux Lampley was previously signed to Warner and released a single.

Margeaux said: “We’ve had a number of people who have done musical comedies in France and worked with famous French singers.

“The group also regularly accompanies artists on The Voice show in France. There are some people who have recording contracts. I have one.

“As a result some of them will not be coming to the show because there’s a bit of a conflict with their other singing, which is unfortunate. They all have their own solo projects.”

Margeaux insisted more of the group were amateurs than professional, while X Factor insider say it’s not flouting show rules unless the whole act has a recording contract.”

Some say, “All publicity is good publicity”, so lets see if 100 Voices of Gospel are around long enough to build on the exposure given to them by Britain’s Got Talent.

Do you think the mainstream media and people in general are more open and receptive to Gospel music?

Do shows like Gospel Proms and BBC Choir of the Year prove that Gospel is growing in popularity?

Or are they as one DJ describe them “one-off tokens”?

I would love to get your take on this.

We are working on getting an interview with 100 Voices of Gospel, that you will be able to see, read and hear at WWW.MUYIWA.CO.UK.

In the meantime leave me a comment below.