Kirk Franklin Takes the Record Behind Dey Know to Church

Kirk Franklin at the 2026 Recording Academy Honors, where he received the Black Music Icon award.

In 1972, the band Mandrill released “Children of the Sun”. In 2007, the same record turned up under Shawty Lo’s hit “Dey Know”. Now it carries a gospel song. Kirk Franklin’s new single “This Time”, with GloRilla, interpolates “Children of the Sun”, and it previews I Am What I Am, the album he releases on 30 October.

That is a long line for one groove to travel: from 1970s funk to a 2007 rap hit to a church choir. It is also a neat summary of what Kirk Franklin has done for more than three decades, which is to treat gospel as a music that can borrow from anywhere and still sound like Sunday morning.

A 1972 Groove With a Long Afterlife

“This Time” arrived on 25 September through Uptown Records. According to uDiscover Music, the arrangement uses prominent horn lines and handclaps, and the press release describes a steeple-sized, chantable chorus driven by Franklin’s energy. Yahoo’s report notes that the song uses the same Mandrill record that Shawty Lo sampled on “Dey Know”.

The structure is classic Franklin. He leads with his choir, and GloRilla steps in near the end with a verse in which she describes herself as a prayer warrior. The song is about getting through hard moments and holding on to faith, familiar ground for gospel. The horns and handclaps give it a pocket a rap fan will feel straight away; the choir tells you exactly where you are.

That is the trick of a good interpolation. It does not hide the source. It lets a listener hear two traditions at once and trusts them to connect the dots, from a 1972 funk record to a 2007 rap hit to a gospel single in 2026.

Seven Songs Each Way on His First Double Album

I Am What I Am is Franklin’s 14th solo album, and it is built in two halves. The project has 14 songs, split evenly between contemporary and traditional gospel, Yahoo reports, which makes it his first double album: one side leans contemporary, the other stays closer to the tradition. Apple Music lists the album with a 30 October release date.

The split makes sense for an artist who has spent his career moving between the two. Franklin has worked across gospel, R&B, soul, hip-hop and pop, and his collaborators have included Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, Chance the Rapper and Demi Lovato. Across his studio albums, he holds the record for the most No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums chart, according to uDiscover Music. A double album lets him serve both audiences without asking either one to meet him halfway.

Thank You For Everything Came First

The first preview was a duet. “Thank You For Everything”, released at the end of August, pairs Franklin with gospel legend Karen Clark Sheard of The Clark Sisters. Franklin wrote and produced it with co-producer Adam Blackstone, and it is a reflective duet carried by a full gospel choir.

It has travelled well. The press release says it has become the fastest-growing record at gospel radio. Franklin performed it at the 41st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards for its live television debut, and the video made its broadcast debut on BET Her, Jesus Freak Hideout reported. Pairing a new single with a Clark Sister is a statement about lineage in itself.

A Second Session With GloRilla

“This Time” is not the first meeting between Franklin and the Memphis rapper. GloRilla featured Franklin and Maverick City Music on “Rain Down on Me” from her debut album, Glorious, and the song won the Dr. Bobby Jones Best Gospel/Inspirational Award at the 2025 BET Awards. This time the roles are reversed, with GloRilla as the guest on his record.

The rollout followed hip-hop routes rather than church ones. Franklin previewed the track on Fat Joe and Jadakiss’s Joe & Jada podcast, and it was later played in full on The Breakfast Club, according to Yahoo. Rapzilla, which covers faith-based hip-hop, described joyous horns, slick handclaps and a verse that shows another side of GloRilla’s range. For a gospel record, that is an unusual set of first listeners, and a deliberate one.

The timing works for both artists. GloRilla has been teasing her second album, and Yahoo notes that her verse on “This Time” appears to hint at a possible title for it, while she said in July that a member of Destiny’s Child will appear on the project. Franklin, meanwhile, was tapped to host this year’s Stellar Awards, the gospel ceremony that also gave “Thank You For Everything” its first television performance at its 41st edition. One single serves a rapper building towards her next era and a gospel veteran opening his, and neither has to step outside their lane to share it.

Uptown Records Brings Gospel Into Its Lineage

The label is part of the story. I Am What I Am arrives after Franklin entered a partnership with Uptown Records, alongside his own Fo Yo Soul Entertainment and TRIBL Music Group. Uptown was launched in New York in 1986 by Andre Harrell, and its first decade included Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, The Notorious B.I.G., Heavy D and Guy, Teddy Riley’s group. REPUBLIC Collective relaunched the label in 2026, its 40th anniversary.

Franklin’s own companies bring their history too. Fo Yo Soul, which he founded in 2004, has been the label home for albums including Losing My Religion, Long Live Love and Father’s Day. TRIBL, founded in 2020, is home to Maverick City Music. Gospel arriving on the label of Mary J. Blige and Jodeci is a fitting move for an album that opens its campaign with a Mandrill groove and a Memphis rapper.

The relaunched Uptown is not a heritage act, either. According to the press release, its current roster includes G Herbo, Yung Miami, ATL Jacob, Trap Dickey, Sunkis and 9B Meechie, which makes Franklin the gospel voice on a label built around present-day rap and R&B. That puts I Am What I Am in the same release schedule as records aimed at a very different audience, and it gives the contemporary half of the album a natural route to listeners who might never search for a gospel record on their own.

Three Decades of Crossing Over

The new album follows 2023’s Father’s Day, which brought Franklin his 20th Grammy and included the No. 1 song “All Things”. In 2024 he headlined The Reunion Tour 2.0 with Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, The Clark Sisters, Marvin Sapp and Kierra Sheard-Kelly. In 2025 he received the Ultimate Icon Award at the BET Awards, and in January 2026 the Recording Academy gave him its Black Music Icon award during Grammy Week.

The work around the music has grown just as steadily. Franklin runs a SiriusXM channel, Kirk Franklin’s Praise, and has executive-produced BET’s Kingdom Business and Lifetime’s Kirk Franklin’s A Gospel Christmas, and in 2025 he launched an online series, Den Of Kings. The press release counts 21 albums, billions of streams and views and numerous platinum certifications, along with mentoring work with rising artists through Camp Lotus and support for Compassion International and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Those honours describe a career, but the new music shows he is not treating it as finished. Label moves can reshape a record as much as a producer can; our piece on how Lucky Daye left RCA and made an album about permission traces the same kind of reset in R&B.

What to Listen for on 30 October

When I Am What I Am arrives, the interesting thing will be the seam between its halves. Listen for how far the contemporary side pushes the hip-hop and R&B influences that “This Time” points to, and how closely the traditional side sits to the choir sound of “Thank You For Everything”. Kirk Franklin has always worked in that space between the two.

And listen to the source. Put on Mandrill’s “Children of the Sun”, then “Dey Know”, then “This Time”. The groove has been carried across five decades and three genres, and in Kirk Franklin’s hands it lands somewhere it has never been before: in church.

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Will Lisil

Founder of MW3.biz, building technology that empowers creators and democratising access to digital tools.

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