Recap of Canton Jones CD Listening Party “Kingdom Business”

By Richard Cox

On January 25, 2008, Arrow recording artist, Canton Jones held his official listening party for his project Kingdom Business in Washington, DC. It was held at the Youth Impact Center of Greater Mount Calvary Church. The co-pastors are Bishop Alfred Owens and Evangelist Susie Owens.

About 150 excited and energetic young people gathered for a listening party for Canton Jones. The Stellar Award-winning radio station WPGC-AM Heaven 1580 sponsored the event. Radio personality Jeffrey Taylor opened with prayer and introduced Canton Jones.

When Jones took the stage the crowd went wild. He lifted his voice and declared “Get ready to take over … give me that soldier’s face … there’s going to be a shift in this place … where are my warrior praisers?” Jones’s comments energized the crowd even more. It took a little time to calm down the audience.
Jones explained the program for the listening party, and told the crowd he was going to play samples tracks from his new project Kingdom Business. He explained the message behind the songs, conducted a Q&A to interact with the audience and ended the party with singing music from his previous projects.

Canton Jones shared the inspiration for the title Kingdom Business, which is the story of 12-year old Jesus telling his mother Mary that he was handling his Father’s business. Jones continued to say that we as Christians need to handle our Kingdom business outside of the four walls of the church and go in our streets, schools, jails, etc.

In Living Clean was the first songJones talked about how this song was written for riders. He explained it was for riders who like to drive clean cars. It was for the type of people in the church who live to ride and put rims on their cars. Everyone just laughed while listening to Jones give funny examples about his observation of different saints who love their cars.

The next song The Professional Jones told us was written to remind us that we were created to praise God. He said “your first profession is to praise.” Jones gave us funny examples about the different type of praisers. He made the point to not be a weird praiser because you could cause someone to run away from the church. Jones stressed about keeping it real. He pointed out how many of his songs he uses “I’m” so when you sing the song it makes the song personal to you. When the track started playing Jones called different young people to come up show off their crumpin moves. There were a couple of young men who came up to showcase their dancing talents. The audience cheered on the dancers.

After the youth finished dancing Jones continued talking about how he likes to stay relevant with the young people. So he try to listen and see what they are doing. He said that it helps him understand their perspective and then he can be more effective with giving the youth Jesus perspective. Jones explained how the devil can’t create but pervert. He gave the example of how Jesus selected his disciples like Peter who was a fisherman by trade so for Jesus to relate in terms he could understand about being a disciple Jesus told Peter I’ll make you a fisherman of men he could relate the message.

My Walk is a song Jones explained is about not judging me with the way I do something for Christ which might be a different way from you. For example, he said “my mother’s style of praying is different from my style of praying but God honors them both.” Jones told us that I have to talk to young people and to the adults. Even though out styles might be different the effect is still the same in ministry.

Jones points out on the song I Won’t Stop that it was written to encourage you not to stop with achieving your hopes and dreams. He says “don’t let someone finish something you started because you quit.” Jones gave the example that He wasn’t going to stop his music however he said you must personally insert what you won’t stop in your life. Jones had the crowd wave their hands while repeating the phrase “I Won’t Stop” as he said things like… I’m coming out of the ghetto …. I’m going to become a millionaire… Not until I win… I’m superseding the stats in Jesus name… and on and on. He said at the end of the song “because Greater is He that is in You than He that is in the World” and high praise broke out in the place.

Jones explained Hater Day wasa song written for the haters in your life.He told us that on Hater Day you decide to do something good for one day for your hater and call it Hater day. Jones gave examples of things you can do on Hater Day such as ask the person out to lunch, send flowers, find out what they like, etc. The chorus of the song says, “I’m going to do something good for today, Lord help me with tomorrow.” Jones joked by saying “be careful you are not receiving gifts and treats on someone’s Hater day.”

The song Kool , Jones told us Tye Tribbett sings with him. It’s a simple song where Jones shouts the question “Anybody want to praise today?” And immediately the crowd jumped from their seats and started swinging their fist in the air saying “Oh oh Oh oh. “ Jones would pause for a moment and then jump back into the song with question “Anybody want to praise today?” The praise energy was high in the place.

On the title track Kingdom Business Jones went around the audience asking the youth what kind of businesses they would like to own. Some of them said “beauty shop, barbershop, school superintendent, architect , etc. “ Jones said “this song was about taking the Gospel to the street and handle your business. “

Jones called different young guys from the audience on the song 24s What You Want. He had the guys to pretend they were driving different style of cars and asked them what kind of rims they had on their cars. As the track played the guys pretending they were cruising in their cars.

Pimp Hard is a song where Jones describes the story about a guy who cheated on his girlfriend but didn’t know that she was cheating on him. The boyfriend gets kills by the girlfriend’s lover that is a lesbian. He told us about some of the other alternate endings situations he considered for song.

Jones told us that Nobody Cared was written as a song of encouragement. It is such a powerful track. The chorus says, “Jesus you cared for me when nobody cared you loved me when nobody cared at all.” This song really ministers to your soul. This song touched the hearts of the crowd to stand and wave their hands while the track played.

My Day, Jones told us he wrote this song to proclaim a positive confession each day. He said “you got to stay positive and get away from negative people that try to kill your dreams and aspirations in life.” The chorus says “my day, today is going be a good day.”

Jones explained the song Ringtone , deals with the way we change up with puttingdifferent ringtones on our cell phones. He start shouting “taking over for the kingdom” and the audience recited “put that on your ringtone.” Jones would go back an forth with the audience with different lines. Everyone was on their feet joining in on the line “put that on your ringtone.”

Everyone stood, cheered and clapped giving Jones a standing ovation of approval about his new project Kingdom Business. Jones was surrounded by his fans on stage as he ended the party with singing a medley of his fans favorite hits from his previous projects like Password, Stay saved and more.

Stellar Award Winning Gospel Announcer of 2008 Cheryl Jackson thanked the host church and young people for coming to the event. Jones signed autographs as everyone left the listening party feeling uplifted, inspired and encouraged to hold on to God’s Unchanging Hand.

Mark you calendars on February 5, 2008 to pickup your copy of Canton Jones’s project Kingdom Business in stores everywhere.

Here’s special message to the Gospelcity Family from Canton Jones about his new project:

“Make sure you go get the CD for one and when you get it make sure that you let somebody else listen to it. There maybe a message in it for someone to hear. The CD I made it is for the guy who goes through something and gets in trouble there’s a song for him…. What about the girl that get pregnant and get kicked out of the church there’s one for her… What about the guy that’s saved and he want to be kool so you can be kool and be saved I wrote a song for him. I wrote songs with people in mind.”