Fred Hammond – Real, Live Worship

CCM: The genesis of “Urban Praise & Worship” is often attributed to you and your recordings. When you first began your solo career did you realize you were inspiring a new sub-genre of gospel music?
FH: I didn’t start out [recording in my style] to say, “Watch what happens.” I just figured this would be my style like Michael Jackson or Prince had a style. Different people have different styles.

Because the urban church, the black church, the inner city church weren’t doing Praise and Worship, I figured I would do a style of music that glorified God but I would just put a different beat to it. Where an acoustic guitar would be on somebody else’s song, I’d put an organ. The drumbeats would have a little more hip-hop flavor with sample-driven things underneath. I put some soul into it—that’s all I did—so other people could say, “Wow, I didn’t know we could do that.”

click to buy