Tems Breaks Kirk Franklin’s Winning Streak For BET Gospel Award

“And the BET award goes to…Tems!”

The BET Awards 2024 prized Tems with the Dr. Bobby Jones Gospel/Inspirational Award this previous Sunday, June thirtieth. The Nigerian songstress took dwelling the title for her observe, “Me & U,” breaking Kirk Franklin’s four-year profitable streak.

“Me & U” serves because the lead single for her debut album Born within the Wild. The tune peaked at number one on the UK Afrobeats Singles Chart and quantity 34 on the UK Singles Chart whereas in the USA, it reached quantity 10 on the Effervescent Beneath Scorching 100 chart.

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In keeping with a publish on X, previously often known as Twitter, Tems penned the tune to explain her relationship with Jesus Christ. The confession got here when she clarified her artistic intentions for an X person who drew parallel between the promotional picture of her standing in shallow pure water carrying a translucent white robe and imagery of Oshun and Yemayá, two deities often known as Orishas within the Nigerian Yorùbá spirituality.

“Truly it’s about Jesus Christ instructing me the right way to stroll on water, to belief Him and never in human understanding,” she wrote. “He modified my life. And when you search Him He’ll fill you up too.”

In an interview with BBC 1Xtra, she detailed the inspiration for its accompanying music video with related sentiments. “The entire video is actually about God being with me from once I was a baby [and] in each model of me, God being there with me, taking me by way of each single factor.”

That is Tems’s first time being nominated within the class. She beat out large gospel stars that cross genres and generations together with her uptempo devotional tune. Apart from Kirk Franklin, the next had been additionally included on this 12 months’s line up: “All the Glory” by Shirley Ceasar, “Angel” by Halle Bailey, and “Come Jesus Come” by CeCe Winans. In addition to “Do You Imagine in Love?” by Erica Campbell, “God Issues” by Maverick Metropolis Music, Naomi Raine, and Chandler Moore.

Franklin was poised to win for the fifth time in a row with two tune nominations within the operating, “All Issues” and “Strive Love”. The artist is traditionally essentially the most nominated and awarded within the class. That is his eighth 12 months in a row being up for the award. Except for 2019, when Snoop Dogg and the late Rance Allen took the title dwelling, he has gained every time.

Tems, 29, is the third secular artist to win the Dr. Bobby Jones Gospel/Inspirational Award. Following Snoop Dogg and Rance Allen’s 2019 win, Lil Child and Kirk Franklin gained for his or her document, “We Win (Area Jam: A New Legacy)” in 2022.

BET expanded the nominations to incorporate “inspirational” alternatives in 2005. Kanye West’s ever common tune “Jesus Walks” was first up for consideration. He was nominated once more in 2022 for his document “ Come to Life”. H.E.R. and Tauren Wells had been thought-about for “Maintain Us Collectively (Hope Combine)”. In 2023 PJ Morton and KeKe Wyatt had been nominated for his or her observe “A Higher Benediction Pt. 2”

Tems Breaks Kirk Franklin’s Profitable Streak For BET Gospel Award 
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