Tim Godfrey is not your conventional gospel artist. In the 2000s, at a time when Nigerian gospel largely depicted brooding, praise-led inspiration, he was already fusing Afrobeats with messages of God and His word, joining other Afro-gospel songs you should know. “If you know me well, I’m always the one that breaks ceilings,” he tells OkayAfrica. “The one that dares to go where everybody is avoiding or afraid of. Everything about me has always been about amplifying things I believe we need for the next generation.”
When he released his first Afrobeats album in 2006, it was “totally rejected,” he shares, “and people [queried] if it would be accepted in the next ten years.” He doesn’t think the church has completely done so, but more than ever, Afro gospel now operates at a degree of perception previously attributed to only pop stars. And for a pioneering figure like Godfrey, who has bolstered his conviction in his art. He pours all this into his new album, No Label, a project that’s already subject to online discourse over its overarching ambition.