Gospel Group’s Album Sets Mark For Debut

Sat., May 18, 1996

David Okamoto Dallas Morning News

“Whatcha Lookin’ 4,” the third album by the 15-member gospel group Kirk Franklin and the Family, has debuted at No. 23 on the Billboard pop albums chart, the highest pop debut ever scored by a gospel artist.

The album sold 31,000 copies last week, according to SoundScan. It also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s gospel and contemporary Christian charts and at No. 6 on the R&B chart.

Franklin, a 26-year-old Fort Worth native who has been a minister at Strangers Rest Baptist Church, raised eyebrows and the profile of gospel music by mixing religious values with hip-hop and R&B rhythms on “Kirk Franklin and the Family” in 1993. But he credits his commercial success to his audience, not his youthful sound.

“I believe that it just goes to show you that people in society have more religion than we give them credit for,” Franklin said by telephone from an Atlanta tour stop, noting that politically charged issues such as abortion and school prayer have made the church seem more complex than it is.

“The message of Jesus Christ is simple: Love … All I do is write what God laid on my heart.”

If sales follow the trend of “Kirk Franklin and the Family,” which has been in the Top 5 of the Billboard gospel chart for 145 weeks and has sold more than a million copies, “Whatcha Lookin’ 4” could eclipse the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ 1969 album “Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord,” which peaked at No. 15 on the pop chart.

Franklin also stands to break a record set by another famous Franklin: “Amazing Grace,” soul legend Aretha Franklin’s collaboration with James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir, which reached No. 7 in 1972, making it the highest-charting gospel album to ever scale the pop charts.

But while Franklin is suddenly rubbing shoulders on the charts with Shania Twain, Coolio and Oasis, he isn’t wasting his energy counting his record sales.

“I’m not trying to be a pop star,” Franklin says. “I’m a church boy. … Whatever you label me, my message is still gospel. My spiritual relationship will be what prevails.

“I don’t believe my own hype. I try to stay focused on one point and one point only: I’m trying to touch some lives out there and save some of these young black kids. The message is: ‘It wasn’t too late for me; it’s not too late for you.”’

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