Gospel music legend Kirk Franklin has hit back at critics calling out his collaborations with rapper GloRilla, saying that he thinks "miserable" people are trying to police who can make Gospel music.
Franklin has collaborated with the Louisiana artist twice in the last year, and has worked with the Deep South artist for a single off his 10th and latest studio album, I Am What I Am, titled 'This Time'.
The Gospel hip-hop track praises and reaffirms faith in God’s timing, fusing Gospel choir and trumpets with the rumbling bass of GloRilla’s discography.
GloRilla and Franklin first linked up last year for the track 'Rain Down On Me' on GloRilla’s secular album, praising God alongside Maverick City Music, Kierra Sheard and Chandler Moore.
On Big Boy’s Neighbourhood, Franklin revealed it broke his heart that he thought people judged GloRilla for making Gospel music.
Franklin said: “It’s been breaking my heart, for some of the ridicule that some of the religious have given her - that she’s not holy enough or churchy enough to be able to do a song.
“She said to me, and it really broke my heart because she’s a young girl, she’s a big hip hop star, she doesn’t need to be over here.
“It ain’t like Kirk Franklin is bringing GloRilla a new bag that she can’t get on her own. This is Gospel; Gospel ain’t mainstream pop, Super Bowl halftime music - it is a niche; it’s for a specific community of people who believe that monotheistic ideal.
“She’s getting all this ridicule from working with me on this record, and she killed the record! She slid on the record, and people are loving the record!
“She said, ‘The Bible says that the rocks are going to cry out to God, that the rocks are going to praise God. ’ She said, ‘If a rock can praise God, why can’t I?’
“I had no answer; all I had was heartbreak. That is such a painful question.
“Everyone is attacking me like I am not worthy enough to talk about God just because some of my music may be considered whatever you consider it to be - you don’t think that He doesn’t want to hear from me”?
When asked whether Franklin cared about what Christians thought of him as an artist, the Gospel star said that he was happy to stand out.
He felt he was fighting the same battles he was at the start of his mainstream career with his smash hit Stomp in 1997, another track with a female secular rapper.
He drew parallels between his breakthrough hit collaboration with one half of Salt-N-Pepa, Cheryl James, and his latest debated collaboration.
“I’ve been in it for so long it don’t bother me; I was going through this 30 years ago with Salt”, he added.
“How long you’ve got to be miserable to keep a 30-year conversation, you’ve got to be a miserable group of people to spend almost half a century trying to police who can speak about Jesus! That’s wild.
“I’ve been listening to what people think about me for going on 33 years. Some people talk about how I dance, how I move - I’ve been hearing the good, the bad and the ugly. I realise that I can’t get you to like me by now; it’s probably not going to happen.
“It feels so good to be real. When you’re raised in church culture, it’s very easy to assimilate and put on the mask, and especially if you were young in church, you had to act older because for some reason the older people didn’t take the youth seriously”.
Franklin spoke to Premier Christian Radio in July about his love for London.