Byron Cage
Byron Cage is a born worshipper.  Over more than 15 years, as the leader of two of America’s major, mega-churches, he has birthed and grown praise & worship music into traditional gospel churches where contemporary music had been previously unheard.  And with the release of his self-titled debut Gospo Centric album, Byron’s carefully---and prayerfully---cultivated brand of cross-cultural, mass-appeal praise & worship is about to be carried to congregation and audiences far beyond the four walls of even the biggest church.

Produced by gospel luminary Kurt Carr, and recorded live at Atlanta’s New Birth Cathedral, the album’s eleven songs were written or co-written by a plethora of gospel music’s most celebrated writers, including producer Carr, Donnie McClurkin, Michael Brooks, and Byron himself.

Byron’s dramatic vocals soar atop a stirring vocal ensemble that includes a number of the Kurt Carr Singers, as well as Byron’s own group Purpose.  “Psalm 3” is a moving ballad of encouragement, and an offering of praise to God for His deliverance in times of trouble.

 “In that particular Psalm, David is running from his son Absalom, who was trying to kill him,” Byron explains.  “There’s a very human side to all of us that cries out to the Lord in times of trouble and situations where we feel overwhelmed by life’s circumstances.  But in all we go through, we need to remember that the Lord is a shield for us, just as He was for David."

Byron sings unadorned praises to God accompanied by the sweet and soulful sounds of his background singers on “It Is To You,” written by Donnie McClurkin and eloquently expressing what Byron calls “a true hunger and thirsting for God.”

Kurt Carr contributes “There Is A Name,” a deeply worshipful proclamation and glorification of the name of Jesus Christ.  “I think that song is destined to become a classic because it’s a universal song of worship that crosses all lines of culture and ethnicity,” says Byron.  “It states the simple but powerful promises we can count on when we call upon Christ.”

 “Glory To Your Name” is a compelling mixture of contemporary R&B, pop, and traditional gospel on which Byron lays down mighty vocal riffs and spoken exhortation as his ensemble carries the song’s unforgettable message and melody.  “God is sovereign and always the same,” Byron says, “and our appropriate response is to bow down before him, worship and adore Him, giving Him glory to His name.”

A medley of “Glory Song” picks up the pace with a steady rolling groove, adding even more celebratory steam on totally-2003 remarks of Byron’s earlier Full Baptist hits, “Yet Praise Him” and “Shabach.”

“What You Are” is a beautiful, reverential declaration of the holiness of the Lord.  “This is a song for anyone who may think they don’t like praise & worship music,” Byron states.  “This song in particular---and the whole album---is very inclusive musically, and it also imparts the meaning and purpose of worship.  Once we understand why we do something, it becomes more important as well as more enjoyable.”

Byron, currently a resident of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in suburban Washington, D.C., spent his childhood in small town in Michigan, moving to Detroit when he was 13.  His extraordinary musical gifts made themselves clearly audible and evident literally from the cradle. 

 “My mother tells me I seldom cried as a baby,” says Byron.  “Most often, she would come into my room and I’d be lying in my crib, humming a melody of some sort.  She’d say, ‘Listen to him!  He’s just singin’ away!’  Music has always just been part of who I am.”

Performing his first solo in church at the age of four, Byron studied and played saxophone throughout his youth, later becoming proficient as a self-taught keyboardist as well.  Upon his family’s move to Detroit, he became a member of Greater Grace Temple-also the church attended by Fred Hammond and several of the young men who would later form Commissioned, where Byron soon became a vocal soloist and youth choir director.

Byron’s career direction began to take even more definite shape when he was a guest artist on the third Commissioned album, and starred in one of renowned gospel playwright Michael Matthew’s early productions.  He had also become close friends with the late gospel great, Thomas Whitfield, with whom he toured and performed in the mid-80’s, before leaving the road to accept a full music scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Byron attended a small-but-flourishing church in Atlanta called New Birth, and within a short time became its musical director.  Now 25,000-members-strong, New Birth grew from 700 members to 16,000 during Byron’s tenure.  In 1998, he accepted a position as senior minister of church worship for the largest African-American Episcopal (A.M.E) Church in the existence, Ebenezer A.M.E. in Fort Washington, Maryland, and also serves as international minister of music for Bishop Paul Morton’s Full Gospel Baptist Fellowship, one of the world’s major organizations of Baptist churches.

Byron recorded two solo albums for a national gospel label in the mid-90’s, and found his church responsibilities augmented with regular engagements as a performer.  His burgeoning presence in gospel music brought him to the attention of Gospo Centric’s Vicki Lataillade, who asked Byron to write and perform a song on a the self-titled project, Full Gospel Baptist Fellowship.  When that song, “Shabach,” and a subsequent Cage composition and performance, “Yet Praise Him,” which was on the second Full Gospel album, became hits, Lataillade approached Byron with the idea of a solo project of his own on her label.

As he moves to an even larger platform than the one from which he has toiled and served for most of his life, Byron Cage is clearly a man on a mission.  “My greatest desire is that the Lord take this music to the masses,” he concludes.  “I don’t like to think of myself and these songs as being in one box, for only one culture of people.  I know that when we get to heaven there isn’t going to be separate sections for Asians, Latinos, Caucasians, and African-Americans.  We’re all going to come together to worship.  I hope this album will be a major step in that direction, heard by audiences around the world, in and out of the church.  I look at myself as just a vessel that I pray God is going to use to get His music to many, many of His people, and draw them closer to Him.”           

For more information, visit: www.byroncage.com