Marvin Sapp

Former lead singer of the gospel group Commissioned, Marvin Sapp launched his solo career in 1996. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on January 28, 1967, the singer with the deep, warm voice was already a household name when he decided to go solo with an R&B-tinged debut album of the same name, produced by his Commissioned sidekick Fred Hammond. Although this first effort failed to make it into the charts, subsequent albums were sure to appear at the top. Gradually, Marvin Sapp became a key contemporary gospel artist with the releases of Grace & Mercy (#11 in 1997) and Nothing Else Matters (#6 in 1999) for Word Records, before signing with Verity for I Believe (#4 in 2002), Diary of a Psalmist (#6 in 2003) and Be Exalted (#2 in 2005), the first of which also charted on the Billboard 200. Over the next few years, he reached the pinnacle of his career with a series of five #1 gospel chart recordings: the gold disc Thirsty in 2007, Here I Am, which also reached #2 on the Billboard 200 in 2010, I Win in 2012, You Shall Live, his debut album for RCA Inspiration in 2015, and Close in 2017. Her two biggest solo hits remain the gospel No.1s "Never Would Have Made It" (2008), "The Best in Me" (2010) and "My Testimony " (2011). After this golden age, Marvin Sapp continued with the albums Substance (2022) and Then and Now (live, 2024). In 2022, his career was the subject of a biopic entitled Never Would Have Made It: The Marvin Sapp Story.