During Sunday nights BET 2011 Awards, the Grammy-award winning duo Mary Mary nabbed the Best Gospel award. Contenders in the category included Byron Cage, Deitrick Haddon, Karen Clarck Sheard, and BeBe & CeCe Winans.
Since the release of the sister duo album, Something Big, it ranked No. 28 on R&B/Hip-Hop Album Charts on Billboards and No. 3 on the Gospel Album Chart as well as top spots on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Charts.
“When we started off with the album titled Something Big, we didn’t know all that it would evolve into, but we knew it was something that was put in our hearts and our heads and our minds,” they say. “‘Something Big’ is not just the name of a song – it’s a movement,” said Tina Atkins-Campbell to NPR.
The awards show also included a tribute to the late Walter Hawkins, who died in July 2010 at the age of 61 due to pancreatic cancer. As part of the tribute, the Californian sisters, Erica and Tina Atkins-Campbell performed alongside Donnie McClurkin and Deitrick Haddon, singing “Thank You Lord.”
Patti LaBelle, 67, who released her first gospel album in 2006 after a three decade music career, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. Singer Gladys Knight, who made news when she performed “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” and “The Lord’s Prayer” at the funeral service for Michael Jackson, presented the award to LaBelle.
Authors Thoughts: I am in a strait while hearing the success of these gospel artist today. On the one hand I enjoy some of the music that is presented on the album and the message of Jesus getting to a larger audience, but on the other I question “how” the Gospel is being presented. There should be a clear and peculiar difference when it comes to the praises of God. Also as Christans we should not have the atittude of conformity no matter what the medium, we should present the gospel as a way to transform from things that held us back from obtaining love, peace, joy etc… Romans 12:2
