Hezekiah Walker & The Love Fellowship Crusade Choir

Hezekiah Walker is a survivor. He survived a childhood on the mean streets of Brooklyn, New York. He endured the death of his father while he was still a boy, and he rose above an environment where the overwhelming majority of young men were destined for either jail or an early grave. From the harsh, inner-city surroundings, Hezekiah has today risen to be the founder, builder and leader of one of America’s cutting-edge gospel choirs.

Fittingly, Hezekiah & the Love Fellowship Crusade Choir (LFCC) are celebrating their 15th Anniversary together with the release of the appropriately titled “Family Affair” – and the music, the message, the ministry, and the beat goes on stronger than ever. “Family Affair” continues Hez’s hit-making tradition of mixing high-energy, modern R&B with traditional Gospel roots into an amalgam that can almost single-handedly be credited with birthing the now pervasive genre of contemporary, urban gospel.

Hez and LFCC deliver irresistible uptempo grooves on “Power Belongs To God” and “Wonderful Is Your Name,” while turning soft and poignant on the moving ballad, “Oh, I Feel Jesus,” produced by Gospel superstar Donald Lawrence. Handling production chores on 12 of the album’s 13 cuts is heavyweight hit-master, J. Moss. Moss fine-tunes the trademark LFCC sound into the most mass-friendly radio-ready collection of the choir’s already extraordinary career.

“I’ve always tried to incorporate the same excitement people find in secular music into Gospel music and into what we are doing for the Lord,” said Hezekiah, “and J. was the perfect man for the job and knew exactly what he was going for. In every aspect – production, songs, performance – this is the most exciting record we’ve ever made. After 15 years to be able to say that is a real good feeling.”

Without a doubt the biggest head-turner of Hezekiah’s ongoing musical outreach is the no-hold-barred hip hop and rap of “Let’s Dance,” a departure to be sure from anything Hezekiah and LFCC have offered to date, but also an undeniable, smash-hit jam poised to carry the Gospel message farther, wider and deeper than ever before.