Cherisse Moe

With a call to re­turn to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty amid the coun­try’s es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion, some of the na­tion’s lead­ing gospel artistes came to­geth­er last Tues­day to en­cour­age cit­i­zens to live for Je­sus Christ be­fore it is too late. Their pul­pit was an un­like­ly one: the We Out­side pod­cast, host­ed by Yung Bred­da along­side DJ Hot­ty and Jamie, mark­ing a first for live gospel per­for­mances on the pop­u­lar plat­form.

Artistes Jaron Nurse, Bj’orn Pierre, Nathanael, Marc Isaacs, Blessed Mes­sen­ger and Faren­ite took to the vir­tu­al stage, trans­form­ing the stu­dio in­to an up­lift­ing two-hour praise and wor­ship ses­sion, de­liv­er­ing hits from their re­spec­tive cat­a­logues.

While the ses­sion has al­ready racked up thou­sands of views on­line, the im­pact was most pro­found for Yung Bred­da him­self. The Great­est Bend Over singer ad­mit­ted that the ex­pe­ri­ence en­cour­aged him to ex­am­ine his own spir­i­tu­al walk.

“What I took away from it was that I want to get clos­er to God. My job takes a lot of time away from me, but I al­ways med­i­tate and say a prayer. It showed me that I need to take more time for God. And as much as He is bless­ing me, I wan­na give more of my­self,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

He con­fessed that he has long-held feel­ings about shift­ing his con­tent to some­thing more pos­i­tive, vow­ing to even­tu­al­ly make good on that promise. “I know my mu­sic will change for the good and it will be per­ma­nent. My mind been telling me that. Some peo­ple will say, ‘He al­ways talk­ing about God and look at what he singing.’ But on­ly the Fa­ther knows my heart. Noth­ing hap­pens in a day. I have to take my time, day by day, and I be­lieve that I will get there soon.”

The host al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the artistes’ ap­proach, not­ing that they did not treat the ap­pear­ance as a “book­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty”, but re­spect­ed the plat­form and its mis­sion. “They didn’t scorn us or treat us dif­fer­ent­ly,” he said.

The idea for the gospel night came from Jesse John, Yung Bred­da’s man­ag­er and own­er of Op­ti­mus Pro­duc­tions. It was a con­cept the artiste im­me­di­ate­ly en­dorsed.

“I thought it was a good idea be­cause of the crime sit­u­a­tion. A lot of youths are dy­ing. In this gen­er­a­tion, we need to re­mem­ber God a lit­tle bit more,” Yung Bred­da, a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist, ex­plained. “A lot of peo­ple look at my team, and be­cause we do dance­hall, so­ca and zess, peo­ple miss the point. We al­ways take time to re­mem­ber the Cre­ator who gave us the knowl­edge to do every­thing and re­mem­ber where He brought us from. I come from a spir­i­tu­al fam­i­ly. I know there is one true and liv­ing God.”

Fans em­braced the pos­i­tiv­i­ty. “Proud of you Bred­da. This is what our youths need,” said one com­menter on the We Out­side YouTube page. “Heart was so heavy this morn­ing I need­ed this wor­ship. Thank you,” an­oth­er said. How­ev­er, some ques­tioned whether gospel artistes be­longed in such a sec­u­lar space, ask­ing if the plat­form was a “holy” enough ground for wor­ship.

Jaron, who per­formed Fed Up, Tell Some­body, Cau­tion Tape, and his lat­est of­fer­ing, Step, said the ses­sion aimed to high­light that “Je­sus is for every­body” and that Chris­tian­i­ty is not bor­ing.

“A lot of peo­ple lim­it gospel to a genre but gospel is sim­ply the mes­sage,” he said. “That’s why we have gospel rock, gospel rap, gospel reg­gae, gospel so­ca. The mes­sage of Je­sus don’t ever change. Some­times we change the method.”

Marc Isaacs echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, stat­ing that “the good news” is not con­fined to the four walls of the church. Singing Val­i­date, Mer­cies Cyah Done and Open d Gate, he said he want­ed view­ers to leave with a mes­sage of hope, peace and love.

“Some peo­ple look­ing at the record­ing might be the first time they en­counter the mes­sage of Je­sus Christ, and to me that’s a win—to reach the peo­ple that may not be in places or spaces or events that are pre­dom­i­nant­ly gospel themed,” he stat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Nathanael, the plat­form pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to share faith through mu­sic in a way that ad­dressed the coun­try’s cur­rent cli­mate. He min­is­tered with songs such as Who God Bless, Ap­point­ment and The Mes­sage.

“The Bible says we are in the world, but not of the world. That speaks to po­si­tion and com­po­si­tion; where we are ver­sus what we’re made of,” he ex­plained. “I see mu­sic as a con­ver­sa­tion. Whether that con­ver­sa­tion hap­pens at school, on pub­lic trans­port, at work, in church, or on a pod­cast, it’s still an op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak about God. That’s all this was.”

The en­er­gy re­mained high through­out the night, with vis­i­ble ca­ma­raderie on set as the per­form­ers took turns in­tro­duc­ing and sup­port­ing one an­oth­er be­fore tak­ing the mi­cro­phone dur­ing the pod­cast’s 87th edi­tion.

A gospel artiste and pas­tor of al­most 13 years, Faren­ite said peo­ple need to be re­mind­ed that, in spite of life’s dif­fi­cul­ties, there is restora­tion and peace in Je­sus Christ. Per­form­ing Still Stand­ing, Bold­face and Free­dom Is Mine, he drew on a bib­li­cal prin­ci­ple to de­scribe the col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“As the salt of the earth, I’ve nev­er seen salt ful­fil its pur­pose, sep­a­rat­ed from the el­e­ment in which it needs to be added,” he ex­plained. “I see my role as en­sur­ing that the gospel mes­sage is clear while main­tain­ing a bal­ance of love and right­eous­ness. Keep­ing in mind that Je­sus came full of grace and truth—sent not to con­demn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

Both Bj’orn Pierre and the To­ba­go-born Blessed Mes­sen­ger said the plat­form was nec­es­sary for the “mod­ern mis­sion”.

“This is the pur­pose for which God’s mes­sage was cre­at­ed: to be shared to all the world. It is our du­ty to go in­to sec­u­lar spaces, not to be con­formed, but to shine our light that all men may be drawn un­to the Giv­er of light, Je­sus Christ,” said Bj’orn, who de­liv­ered Put It In D Mu­sic, Touch Not My Anoint­ed and No Spir­it of Fear.

Singing Nev­er Fail Me Yet, Famalay and Yuh Mek a Way, Blessed Mes­sen­ger added, “We can’t keep Je­sus to our­selves; every­body de­serves a chance at heav­en. We must come out of the church and evan­ge­lise. The Bible says to go ye in­to all the world and preach the gospel. Some peo­ple will nev­er en­ter a church so we have to come to them.”

The pod­cast end­ed with Jaron’s Gun­man, a hard-hit­ting track which calls out the crim­i­nal el­e­ment for the role they play in the coun­try’s un­rav­el­ling.