Ragjhon Brown scores a ‘gospel touchdown’
For a country that made the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most churches per square mile, devout Christian Ragjhon Brown realised that despite a huge Christian population, there was a gap in television programming designed for believers.
The 31-year-old decided to do something about that and began working on a gospel competition, Gospel Touchdown, which he hoped to pitch to local TV stations.
“Our culture is deeply grounded in gospel ... . It is therefore important to preserve that legacy, and Gospel Touchdown was designed to do just that. One of the ways of preserving the country’s rich gospel legacy is by unearthing new talent. We want to keep filling the gospel space with new songs, new melodies, new voices. We want to continue spreading the word of God because the gospel has the power to change lives,” he said.
Plans were well advanced to get Gospel Touchdown on local television stations when COVID-19 struck.
Although disappointed, Brown decided that delay would not be denial, and so he proceeded to take the competition to social media.
A BOATLOAD OF SUPPORT
Brown says so far, Gospel Touchdown has gained a boatload of support from the gospel fraternity. The competition, now in its final stages, with the top three contestants having been selected, has received huge endorsements from a number of well-known gospel personalities including Judith Gayle, Ity Ellis, and Nadine Blair.
“We have quite a few messages already asking us when the next competition will start, and we haven’t even wrapped this one up yet,” he said. “We have an interested audience, and so we’re going to do one more round of the social media competition next February while we finalise sponsorship to take it to TV once more. We want to give companies enough time to recover from COVID-19.”
The top three, Erica Lumsden, Odette and
Imani, and Danielle Cox, will compete again on June 28, when the winner will be announced.
The contestants are competing for a cash prize of $50,000 as well as voice training from KaDon Music Academy.