Maverick City Music, Kirk Franklin bring 'raw and vulnerable' fellowship to Music City

Atlanta Christian/gospel collective Maverick City Music and legendary inspirational artist Kirk Franklin's "raw and vulnerable" boom-bap ministry arrives at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena on Thursday. 

Hip-hop culture and the pulpit have created a beloved, storied tradition for the past three decades. But there's never been a time when the hottest gospel act in the world is a choir from Atlanta beloved as much by Justin Bieber and Franklin as they are by 1,300 inmates at the Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade, Florida.

Maverick City's 18th EP or album release in three years is "Kingdom Book One." It features artists who initially collaborated in a series of 17 songwriting camps held in 2018 and comprised of 100 contemporary Christian artists and songwriters that resulted in 100 songs. The fruits of those gatherings have combined with 16-time Grammy-winning performer Franklin – and jail inmates.

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"We call rooms we perform in the kingdom because we're not just Black, brown or white. We're universal," says Maverick City's Brandon Lake. "Our message creates a community based on love for each other – it's for everyone. ('Kingdom Book One') allowed us to love on the least of these, those who are most often overlooked." 

Notable tracks on Maverick City's latest include "Bless Me," a gospel ballad with a hint of soulful trap energy. For fans of Franklin familiar with his quarter-century history of crossing singles like 1997's "Stomp" over from gospel to urban top-40 radio, it's a familiar-sounding formula. 

Lake describes "Kingdom Book One" says not utilizing Franklin's greatest artistic asset as a on "Kingdom Book One" would have been a "travesty." The legendary artist is a "joy bomb" whose style inspires dancing, shouting and fun, Lake says. 

"Bless Me" joins tracks like "Jireh," from Maverick City's 2022 Grammy-winning Best Contemporary Christian Music Album "Old Church Basement" as being a song that's deceptively simple in its orchestration and lyric. The collective's work errs much more in the vein of simple call and response and conversational conveying of spiritual impulses than more complex displays of spirituality.

"Both Kirk and Maverick City, we create lyrics that reflect the lives we live and not candy coat the lessons we've learned," says Lake. "It's a by-product of our personalities. We are comfortable being ourselves. Sometimes expressing yourself articulately doesn't convey the exact emotion you're feeling."

The group was afforded the chance to work with Franklin because of their explosion in popularity during the COVID-19 quarantine. Moore ties it to the notion that home-bound, traditionally churchgoing people sought out Maverick City when "desperately looking for worship online" and discovering their music to create a soundtrack to fulfill that need.

Maverick City co-founder and Tribl Records CEO Jonathan Jay is proud of their work and early testimonials of the power of their music from Bieber and Shawn Mendez. In a 2021 Christian Post interview, he noted, "the work of the Holy Spirit and inspiration is universal. I think it's something that we're learning about. It's an invitation that I think we all are experiencing."

Jay and Tony Brown – Maverick City's other co-founder – feel taking the group's message into the prison system impacts the lives of the group's target fanbase. Numerous people can – as they have – empathize with having family members being in and out of incarceration, they say.

"It's one thing to sing about making a difference, but it's another thing to actually do it," Lake adds, quoting Matthew 25:36, "I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

Along with spending a week at a prison in Florida recording their latest album, Maverick City Music has also recently visited New York's Rikers Island jail.

"Fellowship is everything," Lake says when asked about what is motivating Maverick City as a collective of late. "Jesus modeled his life (around fellowship), and we worship God by how we fellowship with each other."

To wit, their nationwide run of concerts and live appearances have showcased the breadth and depth of their fellowship's reach. 

In 2022 alone, they've appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk concert series, on the stage at the BET Awards, plus are currently on a nationwide run of capacity-crowd-filled shows in arenas. 

"The greatest gospel artist of all time is working with us, a collective that's hot right now," Lake says. "Our worlds of prophetic worship have united, and we're successfully reaching more multigenerational audiences.

"We're at a season in our world right now when everything feels fake. Having some authenticity in the world isn't us trying to look at a situation and put lipstick on a pig. Instead, we're being honest. People respect that."