Kirk Franklin Takes Matthew Knowles' Place Signing 'Sunday Best' Artists?
Matthew Knowles, the music executive and father to singer Beyonce Knowles, will no longer acquire talent from the BET gospel singing competition "Sunday's Best."
Instead, gospel musician Kirk Franklin will sign the winner of the competition to his Fo Yo Soul Entertainment via RAC Inspiration. Although Knowles previously signed former "Sunday's Best" winners Le'Andria Johnson, Amber Bullock, and last season's winner Joshua Rogers to his Music World record label, joy105.com reports that this will no longer happen.
This year, Franklin's record label will reward the "Sunday's Best" winners with a deal. According to joy105.com, financial issues with Knowles' Music World record label may be a reason that some of his top-selling artists have left and the gospel singing competition.
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While Franklin serves as the host of "Sunday's Best," he is also gearing up to bring a new gospel music competition to BET Networks in the form of the one hour docu-series called "Gone Gospel."
"Gone Gospel" is a competition that will give popular musicians from the past the opportunity to endure a gospel boot camp and change their lives by creating their own personal inspirational music, according to digitaljournal.com. Numerous gospel greats will serve as mentors through each challenge in a musical and emotional journey.
However, only one singer will be able to win the competition in the show that was executive produced by Grammy Award winning gospel musician Kirk Franklin. Franklin will also serve as the host.
The seven-time Grammy award winner recently launched his own radio channel on Sirius XM called "Kirk Franklin's Praise" on channel 64. Franklin, 43, recently gave his fans some insight into his hard upbringing before he became a well known face in the gospel music world.
The gospel musician said he developed his Christian faith further when one of his close friends was killed as a young teenager.
"I was 15 when my dude got killed and when he got killed is when I got closer to faith," Franklin revealed to host Sway Calloway. "That's when I really just developed my own relationship with the Lord."
