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Kirk Franklin takes 'The Fight' to the people
| 01-02-2008 19:02 | 0 reaction(s) | add reaction | add news |
 Kirk Franklin says there's so much turmoil in the world that he's battling to lift his own spirits and those of his listeners. On his newest album, The Fight of My Life, he tries to offer a balm for both the external problems and inner conflicts that people face every day.
"Everybody is just fighting trying to keep their heads above water, whether they're dealing with depression or losing their homes or jobs," the gospel star says. "They don't trust that the war is going to end, and they don't trust the pulpit anymore. I struggle with insecurities from growing up without my pops, and I struggle with my own faith. Those are daily fights."
The album, No. 1 on Billboard's gospel and Christian music charts since its release in December, is the highest-ranking gospel album on Billboard's albums chart at No. 44. That's typical for Franklin, 37, who has been his genre's most consistently successful mainstream artist for the past 15 years, thanks to his fusing of gospel messages with hip-hop and pop beats.
"I'm not trying to cross over," says Franklin, who is working on a movie for Lionsgate based on his 1998 biography, Church Boy. "Even though there's a temptation for me to want to be part of that mainstream world, at the end of the day I'm just that Jesus cat. I don't have no VIP card with God."
Franklin, along with CeCe Winans and Byron Cage, co-hosted the 23rd annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards, which taped Jan. 12 in Nashville and begins airing in syndication Saturday. The reunited Clark Sisters were the big winners, taking home four awards, including CD of the year for Live: One Last Time. Franklin won for special event CD.
He says that while the awards are nice, what's more important is the fellowship that the event creates among artists. "If gospel music begins to be competitive and just about the awards, then we've failed."
He'll perform Declaration (This Is It!) and Jesus, both from Fight, on BET's Celebration of Gospel, which is hosted by comedian Steve Harvey and premieres Sunday (8 p.m. ET/PT). He welcomes the exposure because gospel has become an even tougher sell than usual in the downturned music market.
"Wal-Mart gets 60% of our business, but we are only 2% of theirs," he says. "The genre is struggling at retail because those mom-and-pop stores that used to sell it and some of the major music stores that used to sell it are closed now, making it harder to find."
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