IS GOSPEL ARTISTE Hezekiah Walker “living the life” or what? You bet, but after more than 20 years performing on stages across the globe, he is as overwhelmed as when he started.
“When I started, I prayed, ‘God, just keep me local’, never knowing that I would be abroad singing. Never in million years did I think that I would ever be in Barbados singing to thousands, and people are clapping and can’t sit down,” he told Easy magazine after performing at one of the largest-ever Gospelfest shows recently.
“It was the most amazing experience I have ever had . . . . I had a great time but tonight’s concert was the epitome,” he told journalists backstage at the Gymnasium of the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex.
“Just to see so many people enjoying it! We’re from the United States and we don’t know how far our music reaches, and while I was on stage at times I stopped because I was just so amazed at so many of the people in the audience who knew the words. I was, like, wow!” he said.
When the Brooklyn, New York native and his Love Fellowship Crusade Choir started singing back in 1985, they were just a group of youngsters with big dreams.
“Growing up in the neighbourhood we wanted to kinda stay out of trouble and the only thing we all could afford to do was sing,” he explained.
“We started singing in prisons and we used to go to the malls and sing for Christmas, and it just grew from there and people would hear us and want us to come and sing. Back then, we would take every engagement because we really wanted to stay off the streets, stay in church, and keep out of trouble, not knowing that was going to lead to all of this.”
That led to him being ordained into pastorship and founding the Love Fellowship Tabernacle with eight members in April 1994.
But soon, his ability to rightly divide the Word of truth attracted young people who turned away from drugs, crime and sin, earning him the nickname of “Pastor Of Hip Hop” and a citation the following year by the Council of the City of New York for his work is helping to lower the crime rate by a whopping 30 per cent in East New York area.
Recalling his trials, he noted that “the purpose of God is always trying to be stopped in every man’s life, and sometimes when you go through trials and tribulations, it’s always because the enemy does not want you to really match up to the purpose that God has put on your life since you were in your mother’s womb”.
“So everything I’ve gone through I realise now that I only went through it because the devil did not want me to do what I’m doing now – and that’s to touch thousands and thousands of lives across the world. But you know what? God did it, and the enemy knew as well and tried to stop it through all the trials and tribulations.”
So when Walker croons God Favoured Me, he isn’t singing “through his hat”.
“When we started singing that song I was going through some major things in my life. It felt like my world was caving in. I went through a bad divorce and I felt like no one marries to get divorced . . . . I walked around feeling like ‘God, I put all my time in church and I put all my time in you, so how could this happen?’” he recalled.
“I just felt like I was going down, like no one understood and all of a sudden those words, when I heard them at rehearsals I felt like God was talking to me and that regardless to what I was going through, regardless to what people were saying, He was saying, ‘I favour you and My favour is on your life. You will rise above this, you will come out’.”
His eyes lit up as he remembered: “I was singing that song in the midst of my storm and here it is ten or 11 years later when I tell you that God flipped that thing and turned it around for my good, and I got my family back, my children back . . . . That’s my favourite song, the one that really touched my heart the most throughout my career.”
With this in mind, added the 52-year-old bishop and Grammy Award winner, he has a simple message for those passing through their own valleys.
“If you’re going through anything, there is something the devil does not like about you and something he does not want to happen, but you know what? In the spirit, it’s already happened,” he affirmed.
It’s no wonder that songs like Every Praise have won him international acclaim, for their musical excellence and effect on people’s lives.
Every Praise actually became a weapon for a kidnapped ten-year-old boy who refused to stop singing it until his kidnapper released him unharmed in Atlanta, Georgia.
According to global news reports in April, Willie Myrick was kidnapped from his driveway in southwest Atlanta, but the kidnapper dropped him off three hours later after yelling expletives at him for singing Every Praise over and over.
Upon hearing the story, Walker flew from New York City, entered the sanctuary of Mount Carmel Baptist Church to a standing ovation, and hugged Myrick as tears streamed down the boy’s face.
“I really believe that God spoke through me to save that young man’s life,” Walker said afterwards.
“The song went around the world; it’s like I can’t even begin to tell you about the blessings of the Lord with this song. It has opened up so many doors for me. And you know what? It’s not over yet and I’m just waiting to see what else God is going to do with it. I’m happy that God decided to choose me.”
