'I Don't Know Nothing About No Struggle' — How Norman Gyamfi Misses the Mark on Black Gospel Music
Maverick City Music Manager and CCM Exec Shows His Ignorance About This Sacred Spiritual Tradition
By Deirdre Jonese Austin
“I love Jesus. I love Jesus. I love Jeeee-sus. Yes I do.”
The congregation and choir sang in unison. I looked at my cousin seated beside me, struck by the way she rocked and sang along to Dottie Peoples's “Little Wooden Church.” The iconic gospel song came out in 1996, the year my cousin was born and a year before my own birth. Yet here we were, clapping and singing along with people two and three times our age at a homecoming service in our little brick family church “in the country.” Something about this 30-year-old tent revival song resonated with our multigenerational congregation.
This shared experience is what Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) executive Norman Gyamfi overlooked when he dismissed traditional gospel music in an interview with recording artist Isaac Caree.
“Churches had stopped singing traditional gospel music…the reality is we didn’t grow up like our parents. I don’t know nothing about no struggle…We relate to a different story,” Gyamfi, manager of the popular Maverick City Music collective, stated in a viral clip.
While many were quick to call out the award-winning executive’s disparaging remarks about “stale” Black gospel music, they overlooked the myriad churches like my family’s in rural North Carolina — my maternal grandma’s in Henderson and my grandpa’s in Manson. These are churches where songs like “Little Wooden Church” and Debra Snipes’ “Don’t Call the Roll” still get people moving, singing, and shouting. These rural churches, largely untouched by the White-dominated CCM industry, are a living refutation of Gyamfi’s claim.
Gyamfi’s focus on album sales and tours misses the core function of Black sacred music in the lives of Black Christians. Theologian James H. Cone, in The Spirituals and the Blues, explains that Black sacred music is a form of resistance and communal expression. “The spiritual is the community in rhythm, swinging to the movement of life… Black history is a spiritual!” Cones writes.
The spirituals continue to speak.
“Kumbaya my Lord,” a man’s voice rang out from the back of my grandpa’s church in Manson, signaling devotion time — a sort of prelude to the service where congregants share a song or heartfelt testimony. As the man called on God to “come by here,” there were no instruments, only the clapping of hands and the a cappella echo of voices affirming that God is present with us today as He was with our ancestors.
Wyatt Tee Walker, in Somebody’s Calling My Name: Black Sacred Music and Social Change, describes gospel music as “religious folk music” that continues the tradition of the spirituals. Gospel music not only reflects Black heritage, but also motivates social change. Singing these songs is a powerful act of remembrance and celebration. It’s recalling the anthems of our ancestors, songs that carried them through slavery, sharecropping, and the Civil Rights Movement. While our social circumstances may differ from those of our grandparents, the God we serve remains the same.
Perhaps Gyamfi missed the significance of Black sacred music because its power is more communal, not individualistic. His perspective is clear when he says, “I’m not speaking for everybody. I’m speaking to the general young Black kid. Our struggles today are more internal than they are external forces… We getting up, going to work. The bills is [sic] paid. We got the car. A song like, ‘if He dresses the lilies’ is like, ‘God will keep me fly.’”
This view reduces faith to a means of prosperity. But as Black Christians in the rural South will testify, there is more to life than paid bills and nice cars. A faith tradition forged in communal struggle cannot be replaced by a commercialized genre that often ignores that struggle.
The experiences in my grandparents’ churches are an invitation to reflect. What values are being perpetuated in the songs that we sing? How do they connect to the core of who we are? Perhaps we could all use a little “stale” Black gospel music to draw us back into community and away from the individualism reflected in Gyamfi’s statements.
As I sat in my grandma’s church, rocking and singing next to my cousin, I understood why “Little Wooden Church” resonates. Watching my grandma in the choir, I could feel the memories it stirred in the congregation, regardless of age. We think back to family members and church leaders who have gone on, consider the songs and prayers that brought us through, and contemplate what the church can be for the generations to come.
Churches have not stopped singing gospel music. Its impact is not measured by album sales or tour tickets but in its reflection of our history and heritage, our communal rituals, and the God of our ancestors who is still working miracles today.
Deirdre Jonese Austin is a writer, scholar, womanist minister, and Black feminist anthropologist whose work focuses on religion, race, gender, and sexuality. You can learn more about her and read more of her writing at DeirdreJoneseAustin.com.