Introduction: A Church Kid Speaks Up
Though I’ve stepped back from the pulpit, I can’t stay silent when gospel music—something sacred to the Black church tradition—is misrepresented or exploited. I was raised in the church, steeped in its songs, sermons, and spirit since before I was born. So when I saw the co-founder of Maverick City Music being interviewed by Isaac Curry and heard how he described the group’s origin, it stirred something in me. What’s happening with gospel music, and particularly with Maverick City, is more than a branding shift—it’s a case study in how whiteness and capitalism are reshaping the Black church for profit.
Section 1: The Founding of Maverick City and the Commodification of Gospel
According to the co-founder’s own words, Maverick City was not birthed out of a deep spiritual call or a community need—it was crafted as a product. The idea seemed to be: take Black gospel talent, pair them with white songwriters, and present them to a white evangelical audience hungry for something soulful yet palatable. What we’re witnessing is a kind of sanitized gospel minstrelsy—Black performers carefully curated to be emotionally compelling but commercially safe. That framing violates the very essence of gospel, which isn’t meant to sell but to save, not meant to entertain but to elevate.
Section 2: The Purpose of Gospel and the Erosion of Its Intent
Gospel music isn’t just art—it’s an offering. It was born out of pain, endurance, and praise. Its purpose is the glorification of God and the edification of the Saints. But in this new model, it’s not the Saints being edified—it’s the founders’ pocketbooks. When the music becomes a means to grow profit instead of faith, you lose something essential. What used to be songs of deliverance become songs of deliverables—metrics, streaming numbers, and crossover potential.
Section 3: Whiteness, Church Growth, and the Selling of Methodologies
The idea of “white church success” has been sold to us for years. White megachurches thrive with corporate-style leadership, massive budgets, strategic marketing, and “relevant” programming. As Black pastors, many of us—myself included—bought into it. I modeled my own ministry after places like Elevation Church. I saw their reach and thought, “If I just apply their methods, we’ll get the same results.” But what we gained in structure we lost in soul. In trying to “scale,” we often abandoned the cultural distinctiveness of the Black church—its intimacy, communal focus, emotional authenticity, and liberation theology.
Section 4: Deconstruction, Self-Reflection, and Ownership of the Problem
When I released the album Passed Away, about my own process of deconstruction, I included a lyric that still cuts deep:
“My imagination and procrastination created this situation / Sundays with delicious evolved by Elevation.”
That wasn’t just poetic. It was a confession. I saw the fault line forming years ago—how we adopted strategies for growth that didn’t fit our people. We became distant from the pain, power, and pathos that once defined Black worship. I had to confront the fact that I wasn’t just critiquing the system—I had participated in it.
Section 5: Black Spirituality as Collective Experience
Black spirituality isn’t a solo act; it’s a communal witness. Unlike white evangelical theology, which often centers individual salvation and personal sin, Black theology is shaped by collective survival and sacred endurance. We don’t just sing about heaven because we want to escape—we sing about heaven because we’ve been through hell. Our worship is guttural, emotional, unapologetically loud—because it has to be. It is rooted in both reverence and resistance.
Section 6: The Problem with Sanitizing the Black Church
To strip gospel of its cultural roots, to minimize the emotion, to criticize the “extra” in our worship styles as “too much” or “unpolished”—that’s not just stylistic critique. That’s anti-Blackness. When you try to universalize gospel music by making it palatable for white audiences, you don’t make it inclusive—you erase what made it meaningful in the first place. You silence the pain, the passion, the protest embedded in the sound.
Summary: A Wake-Up Call to the Church
We are at a crossroads. What’s happening with Maverick City is not just about one group—it’s about a system that prizes growth over grounding, profit over purpose, and assimilation over authenticity. As someone who’s led in ministry and loved gospel music all my life, I say this with both grief and hope: we have to reclaim the soul of the Black church before it becomes unrecognizable.
Conclusion: Reclaiming What’s Ours
The Black church has always been more than a building or a choir—it’s been a sanctuary of truth-telling, testimony, and transformation. It is where theology meets reality, and where our voices echo the struggles and victories of generations. If we let capitalism and whiteness continue to dilute our sacred spaces, we won’t just lose a sound—we’ll lose a source of power. But if we pause, reflect, and return to the well that never runs dry, we can rebuild—not by mimicking someone else’s blueprint, but by singing our song again, unfiltered and free.