Kirk Franklin: Gospel music and my own faith journey

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1:36Swarzy Shire:For those of you that think that gospel music has gone too far, you think we've gotten too radical with our message. Well, I got news for you. You ain't heard nothing yet. And if you don't know, now you know.

1:48Kirk Franklin:Welcome to the documentary on BBC World Service with me, Swazi Shiri. I'm joined by gospel legend Kirk Franklin. With a career spanning over three decades, Kirk has received 20 Grammy Awards, performed on many iconic stages. He's known for his big choirs and live recordings, and Kirk's music has been loved inside and outside the church, and I've been a big fan for years. I'm a radio presenter at BBC Radio 1 Extra and Radio 4, and I love to interview gospel artists. I've always wanted to speak to Kirk Franklin to find out more about the man behind the music. Over the years, Kirk has been so transparent about the highs and lows he's faced and for heart and soul, I want to ask him about his personal faith journey to better understand what inspired some of the biggest gospel songs in the world.

2:40Kirk Franklin:What is it about his story that allows his faith and music to go so hand in hand? You can't think of gospel music without thinking of Kirk Franklin. And so I cannot wait to hear all that he has to say. So let's jump in.

2:56Swarzy Shire:I need someone, somebody to help me go and turn my life around. I feel like having some church up in here.

3:04Kirk Franklin:Come on. Given that I want to understand the man behind the music, I want to go from the beginning. Kurt, could you take me back to your childhood, directing choirs from 11 years old. But how did that come about? And when did you first fall in love with music? Wow.

3:19Swarzy Shire:Well, I first fell in love with music when I was four. I was adopted. And the lady that adopted me was an older lady. She didn't have money. She didn't have a lot of means. But she took me to church all the time. And so she would raise money by doing things like recycling cans and newspapers to pay for my piano lessons. And those piano lessons, I would play in church. So as I played in church, you could tell that people started to really enjoy my music. I was kind of like a little child prodigy, I guess. I was getting invited to do so many different things. I was always being invited places. But I loved music as a little boy because it gave me an opportunity to escape the loneliness that I felt as a boy and the abandonment that I felt as a boy.

4:12Swarzy Shire:And so those things really made music very, very heavy for me. It had a lot of gravity to it. And then I started to hear that I was good at it. You know, I could tell that I would get attention from girls. And that made me very happy. That made me feel really good. And then when I was about 15, well, when I became a teenager, I started getting in trouble. I started rebelling even though I was in church I was still doing a lot of you know just bad things and then a friend of mine got killed he got shot and killed and when he got shot and killed that changed my life around that was about 1985 and I gave my heart to Christ and the music started to change like like around about 85 God started giving me ideas when it came to songwriting I was able to speak different musically and have conversations about God.

5:14Swarzy Shire:There were conversations that were honest. If it was a painful moment or a scary moment or a difficult moment or a confusing moment, I would just put it in the music. Or if it was a love moment, I would put it in the music. So I was always just like, even on the first album, at 22, I'm writing a song that says, watch over me and protect me from the things I cannot see. Let your loving arms around me, even young I was you know kind of crying out what did the verse say this is to my friend above who showed me so much love and grace by placing a smile upon my face it's hard to express the way I feel you know right matter of fact I gotta go back and hear that song again that's crazy that I was writing like that at 22 about my walk with God and so early on it was a very intimate kind of father son relationship that I was you know, I was still establishing

6:25Kirk Franklin:Your testimony of just yeah, I'm so sorry of your friend that died, you mentioned being adopted quite young and I think what I love about your story Mr. Kerr Franklin, is how honest and how transparent you are from beginning to end. And so when you said, I gave my life to Christ, for anyone who doesn't know that language, for anyone who wouldn't know what to do with that, could you unpack that? What was that moment where you put your faith in Christ?

6:51Swarzy Shire:Yeah, it was the summer of 1985. And it was in the house of the lady that adopted me. And I basically just prayed the prayer, just prayed the prayer that as Christians, that you are taught to pray, that is very rooted around the scripture, it if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he rose from the grave. It's confessing and believing that at that very moment you shall be saved. And so I remember saying to the Lord that, Lord, I don't know much about you, but I know I need you. And I know that how I'm living is not right. And I believe that you died on the cross for me.

7:29Swarzy Shire:I believe that you rose from the grave for me. And I believe that you're returning someday for me and forgive me for my sins. And I accept you as my savior. And in this moment, I'm believing that I'm born again. I'm believing that in this moment that I'm saved and that you see me and that I've prayed this prayer from my heart to you. And in that moment, it was very obvious for me that it was a beginning or something. I remember a couple of days after that, I was outside. And And again, you know, I lived in the ghetto, lived in the hood. And so one of my boys that I used to smoke with, a few days after that, he was like passing, you know, and it was my time to smoke.

8:12Swarzy Shire:And normally I care about what people think. And I don't want to look like, you know, I don't want to look like punk in front of everybody, right? And so I just remember looking up in the sky and it was a beautiful, like a beautiful evening, almost like a beautiful sunset. And with no fear and no shame and no worry about any backlash, I just said, no, man, I'm good. Wow. And I could tell that it took a lot of courage, but I had it. Right. And where did that come from? It came, it's because I believe that that moment was genuine, that it was an authentic moment.

9:02Kirk Franklin:And going back to music, going back to the albums, I mean, Kirk Franklin and the family were filled with worship songs, Silver and Gold, Why We Sing, even to your present day music, worship and live worship, live recordings, are always at the heartbeat of Kirk Franklin's music. And so what is it about live worship, a room full of people singing gospel harmonies? Why does that make music so powerful?

9:26Swarzy Shire:I don't know. It just does. Like you said, there's nothing like it. And I'm okay with the unexplainable.

9:34Kirk Franklin:Yeah.

9:34Swarzy Shire:You know, I don't have to be so smart that I have an answer for every question. I think that some moments you just sit and you just have the opportunity just to be in awe. Yeah. And I think that, once again, you're right. When you hear the music, when you hear the melodies, when you hear the sonics, when you hear the sounds, sometimes you're just in awe. You're just speaking. You don't really know what to say or what to do because it's so much bigger than you.

10:00Kirk Franklin:Yeah. And I became a Christian at 14. My mum and dad are not Christians. I went to a youth group, Shouts Cause That's a Blueprint Youth, and they were playing Kirk Franklin music nonstop. And then it goes mainstream. So were you aware that your music had that power to go mainstream? and what was that response like?

10:16Swarzy Shire:No, I had no idea that it was going to be mainstream. I had no idea. I had, like, there was no plan for that. And there's never been a plan for the music to be outside of gospel music. I don't know why God did that and I don't even know how it happened. And so, and, you know, I've just tried to do my best to manage that, to try to figure out how to be able to manoeuvre.

10:49Kirk Franklin:The Christian life is a constant rhythm, isn't it? Of repentance and belief and faith. Well, what about when life does get really, really tricky, really tough? You've spoken about being adopted, most recently meeting your dad. And how was that? Is there anything in your life that's been like, do you know what? It's been tricky, but I've not walked away from the Lord. What is it that's kept you and your faith?

11:10Swarzy Shire:Well, I mean, my faith when life has gotten, like you said, tricky. is that I would not know life without him. It's all I've ever known, that Jesus had my heart before he had my soul. It's because I was a young boy and I had no friends. I had no siblings. It was no one in that house but me and this older lady. And it was a very lonely life. And so I would write songs to Jesus. I would have these conversations on the top of the roof of the house to Jesus. So, you know, like Jesus became a best friend to this little lonely little boy way before I knew about the tenets of Christianity. I knew that Jesus was this invisible best friend that I had.

12:02So he already had my heart.

12:05Swarzy Shire:Like he was already in position to be that guy. It's because we were already cool like that. We were already close like that. And so because of that, when I understood as I got older what the depth of this relationship was supposed to be and what it needed to be, it was a natural transition for me. I know nothing else. And so, you know, life without him would absolutely be like half of me is gone.

12:36Kirk Franklin:some people can um wobble along the way i wobble all the time unless the lord's gonna hold me i wobble all the time we all wobble and we all wobble you've seen heights of success kirk you've seen grammy awards and and success just just on loud loud platforms that can also be an easy way to lose face so what is it that keeps you from trusting in yeah fame and people pleasing and validation on the other side of trickiness what keeps you from that I think the other component

13:08Swarzy Shire:is faith is I think that faith and fear like you know like a genuine reverence and a fear of you know it's I don't want to let him down and and I don't want to take advantage of grace you know I'm grateful for grace because as Paul said where sin increase grace increase all the more You know, as David said, I'm thankful that he does not treat me as my sins deserve. So why do I want to abuse that? You know, it's like I don't want to abuse what is already given to me that I haven't even earned or what I don't deserve. So, you know, I'm just very cautious. And I learned early on, early on in my career, I learned that if God hates pride, I want to hate pride.

13:58And so I've kind of manoeuvred and kind of rocked like that.

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15:37Kirk Franklin:You're listening to the documentary on the BBC World Service with me, Swazi Shiri, and I'm joined by special guest and gospel artist, Kirk Franklin. It's been such a joy hearing so much about his life, his start in music and how he found faith in the midst of a difficult childhood. After being adopted at four years old and not having a great relationship with his biological mother, something unexpected happened in 2023 when Kirk was recording his latest album, Father's Day. It was during this time that Kirk found out who his biological father was after believing a different man was his father all his life.

16:15Kirk Franklin:I watched his documentary all about meeting him and seeing them hug for the first time was just so moving. I asked what it was like to connect with him after all this time.

16:30Swarzy Shire:I have to be very transparent with you and tell you that it's still a journey I'm on. It's still a journey I'm on. I know as Christians, we love every ending to be wrapped in this beautiful bow and packaged. All things work together. You know, like we love these beautiful endings that we can shout.

16:54Kirk Franklin:And they're clean. Yeah. Yeah.

16:56Swarzy Shire:And it's done. But when you talk about people being in the wilderness for 40 years and you talk about plagues and you talk about being in the valley, everything does not have a beautiful, picture -perfect ending. You've got to trust that the story doesn't end on this side of eternity. and as Christians the other truth is that when we look at the text we see many believers in the word that had to live with limps everything isn't healed on this side of heaven and I know that we want our faith to be that but nowhere in scripture does it say that faith causes every sickness to be gone a lot of times it is the faith in the midst of the sickness that makes a true faith.

17:50Swarzy Shire:That's what makes a true faith. That though he slay me yet, will I trust him? That's faith. That's faith. And so it's Paul asking, take the thorn and God saying, no, no, I'm just going to give you grace for it. So I am still in the process. It's because think about it. I wasn't looking for a father. He wasn't looking for a son. And these realities now, it's like well what do we do with this you know and so great man he's a great man but i'm still walking through lord what do i do yeah yeah and that's the truth step two is pointless when you're stuck at one until you're somebody's son

18:42Kirk Franklin:Yeah. And I just would love to know what is this? It's not really a secret. We know it's God's grace. But what do you do when family members are tricky to love? People are tricky to love. You yourself know the gospel. You're trying to do that. But it is a wrestle there wanting to gain love and validation from people who ought to love and validate you. What would you say into something like that?

19:05Swarzy Shire:it's the same thing that the athlete says to us when he's running a marathon and when he's getting to the last part of the marathon and you see him coming around the corner his leg is beat up he's bleeding shoulders are broken uh he's got scars and rainy it's dirty he's fallen a few times we even see him fall in a couple of pit holes on his way down to the finish line and what encourages us is the fact that he does not stop and go to the side. What encourages us, even though he may be last, everybody stands and waits for him to finish, even if he's limping, even if he's limping. And we're cheering, knowing that the race for others is over.

19:49Swarzy Shire:But we're celebrating the endurance of this person whose shoes are torn, legs bleeding, scars because of how many times he's rolled down a hill and gotten back up just to finish the race. And what has to happen is that we've got to get the picture out of our lives that you come to Jesus and on earth he gives you this robe and this crown and this pretty walk and everything. No scars, no issues. Everybody's teeth are pretty. But the true picture of Christianity is that man running that race, rain pouring, pants ripped, and everybody is cheering him on a great cloud of witnesses. And let me tell you what he does that we must do every day.

20:32Swarzy Shire:He wins wounded. And that is the Christian life. We must win wounded.