Several years back, if you would have mentioned Tamela Mann’s name, I would have said, ‘Oh yeah, the actress that’s in many of Tyler Perry’s films/stage plays, who can sing too!’ Well, that’s not the case- she’s not just an actress who can hit a few notes, she captivates! Her sultry voice and smooth vocals, similar to our beloved Old School gospel songbirds, like Shirley Caesar and Mahalia Jackson, made us take notice that she was a dual threat with a solid ability to sing and act equally!

Now Tamela Mann’s a triple threat because she’s “shutting down” Gospel Radio history with three (3) consecutive hits! For all our true Old Schoolers, “shutting it down” means that she’s “doing a thing the best, hardest, most full out that it can be done”.

Grammy Award® Nominee Tamela Mann is the first Gospel lead artist in Billboard Gospel Radio chart history to score three consecutive No. 1’s from an album. Now this is reminiscent of how old school created music. Tamela took an “Old School” approach to developing her album, just like back in the day, when artists would drop an album, and you could listen to it from beginning to end. Songs were NOT made just for to be played on radio, just for the younger kids, or just for the “club”. Albums were created as a complete body of work, without any fast forwarding, or skipping over tracks. If you’re a gospel music fan, then you know that Tamela’s album Best Days was released in 2012, yet she’s still rocking from this album! Classic!

Her current single, “This Place,” is the third song to climb to No. 1 from her album, Best Days, which is a follow-up from her previous singles “Take Me to the King,” which spent 24 weeks at the top and “I Can Only Imagine” which spent 13 weeks atop the chart. While raising 4 children, 1 niece, and now they have 8 grandchildren, films, TV, performances, being a wife, you wonder how Tamela Mann, now age 49, can handle it? Well I’m sure her answer would go something like this; “Give it to God…to God be the Glory!”

Check out our gallery of Tamela and her family working hard and playing hard! Also, if you haven’t heard this performance of “Take Me To The King”, live….lawwwddd!

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For the past couple decades, the Gospel music genre has been growing, but R&B music is rapidly taking a nosedive into a bottomless pit. Not too long ago, R&B music dominated the urban charts and radio formats, so how did this happen?

Today’s Gospel has caught up to a degree. Some of the urban Gospel is so close to R&B, the gap is closing yearly. Remember how back in the day, we only had a few of contemporary Gospel songs? Songs like “Oh Happy Day” by the Hawkins Singers was played on “Soul Train” and at certain parties. Then there was “The Mighty High” by THE MIGHTY CLOUDS OF JOY at the height of disco that rivaled THE O’JAYS or THE MANHATTANS; and who could forget “No Charge” by SHIRLEY CAESAR? That song was played on radio like a GLADYS KNIGHT or MAVIS STAPLES joint. One thing is for sure with those songs, they were exceptions and yet we never confused those artists with being R&B artists.

Then came the 80s and THE WINANS and BEBE & CECE WINANS and then KIRK FRANKLIN and MARY MARY had folks in the night clubs getting their drink-on and praising the Lawd at the same time.

Now, with the advent of Hip-Hop Prayze which is in most cases nothing but a slick hip-hop track with interchangeable lyrics. It’s easy to take the word “Baby” and replace it with “Jesus” so you

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