Over the last few years, the band Maverick City Music has racked up an impressive fan base with popular tracks like Jireh and Promise.
It all started with two guys who wanted to create a space where marginalized creatives, such as black people and women who identify as CCM singers and songwriters, would no longer be excluded.
It was a deliberate effort to make space for people in the Church who would otherwise feel excluded. But more importantly, they are a megaphone for a community of innovators who had been pushed aside by the Church Music industry.
Their most successful anthems are led by Alton Eugene, Naomi Raine, Chandler Moore, Dante Bowe, Brandon Lake, Aaron Moses, and Harold Brown. Nothing is known about the other members of the group.
There are many paths to success, but few are as unique as Maverick City Music. But how did they get started? They didn’t get here without a little bit of struggle. Let’s take a look back and see what we can learn from maverick music city.
Humble Beginnings
Maverick City Music is a collective & record label that is based in Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded by Tony Brown and Jonathan Jay and specializes in contemporary American worship music.
The duo formed the group in 2018 after years of songwriting camps that brought together people from across the country to write hundreds of praise songs.
However, Jay revealed that it all started in a living room – with close friends making music.
It all started a long time ago when I and Tony formed Maverick City. But before that, we were part of a worship community called House Fires.
“We wrote some songs called ‘Good Good Father’ and ‘Build My Life’ — songs that made their way, really, around the world, but that started in our living rooms, in our homes, with friends,” he told CP.
Jay and Brown started asking how they could get more people involved with something that has the potential to impact the world.
“Our knee-jerk response to that was to bring people that we have been meeting along the way to write with us and hang out and spend time with us.
“We live in Atlanta,” “We’re from Atlanta. We would have these songwriting camps where we invited all these songwriters to the city and have them collaborate with us on some of our records.” and we kept just doing this over and over again. Jay said.
Building on the success of the House Fires, Jay and Brown soon realized that the music in their live set was different and had a unique tone. Collecting all their inspiration, they founded Maverick City Music.
Jay said that their music grew in popularity as people sought out hope from God.
Maverick City Music has, from the moment of its inception, found itself ranked at the top of Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums and Christian Albums and collaborated with award-winning artists like Justin Bieber.
They released two EPs called ‘Maverick City, Vol. 1’ and ‘Maverick City, Vol. 2.’
In 2020, Maverick City Music released two live albums – Maverick City Vol. 3 Part 1 and Maverick City Vol. 3 Pt. 2 with the former containing the singles “Man of Your Word” & “Promises”. And they received two nominations.
And in the same year, when the pandemic started, many people felt the need to find God, in times of turmoil. Maverick Music City gained more, and more popularity.
“The messages and the encouragement that we would get from people like, ‘Hey, I haven’t been to church in a long time, or I just needed this today, but I listened to a video or heard the song and it has gotten me through,’” Jay noted. “I think for us, hearing that, experiencing that, seeing that was really just a reminder that God was doing something, even in the midst of a year where everyone says, ‘You’re shutting down.’ We really felt like we took off in a sense.”
In 2021, Maverick City Music released their second collaborative EP with Upperroom and in the same year, they released Jubilee.
Maverick City Music released their first Spanish album Como En El Cielo (2021) with the track ‘Acercame’.
They also collaborated with Elevation Worship, producing the album “Old Church Basement” which contains the hit singles “Jireh”, “Talking to Jesus” and “Wait on You.”
Maverick City Music received three nominations for the 2021 GMA Dove Awards: New Artist of the Year, Best Contemporary Gospel Album, and Best Gospel Song, alongside Elevation Worship, Chandler Moore, and Naomi Raine; and Worship Album of the Year for Old Church Basement alongside Elevation Worship.
Conclusion
Maverick City Music is a game-changer for Church Music. It took an evolutionary step that the genre has been waiting for without realizing it.
Growing up, I grew accustomed to listening to worship music on Sundays. So when I started listening to Maverick City Music, it was interesting to see this side of the industry. They still have a lot of room for growth and help draw you in.
They’re not just a gospel group. Moore, as one of the worship leaders and songwriters for Maverick City Music, said: “It was important to us that what we were doing wasn’t categorized as gospel. We wanted to share our testimony in a way that families could identify with.”
It can’t be easily categorized at all, which might explain why Billboard threw their hands up and checked the first box they could think of.
Maverick City Music are good at making vertical songs, which is something that’s not surprising considering their songs are made with the Church in mind.
They’re also a bit of a throwback to American Gospel music, which comes as no surprise given the way they make their songs.
Maverick City Music’s songs are also wildered and woolier creatures than most of what pops up on a Billboard Gospel Chart.
“It’s so unmanicured,” Moore says. “You don’t know what to do with it. You can’t put it in a box. It is what it is.”
Whether you love them or hate them, they’re becoming big in the Gospel industry. Their work is helping many people across the world and changing policies on music releases.
Let us know in the comments what you think about Maverick Music City.