LaShun Pace sang about God’s power. Her voice could hold the angelic note, or drop to the sinner’s growl.
This voice proclaimed the Lord’s victory on a revival circuit in the 1970s and in the 1990s, on the Billboard charts, and eventually on TikTok in 2020.
She sang about how God was revealed in times of trouble, even as she experienced her own painful suffering
Pace, a founding member of the Anointed Sisters and a solo gospel singer with eight studio albums, died on March 21.
One of the greatest gospel singers to have ever touched this planet and a legend, she was remembered just as much for her voice as her spiritual impact.
“My Mother was a genuine and authentic woman of God,” said Aarion Rhodes, her daughter. “She sang the Word of God, preached the Word of God, and lived it to her highest potential.”
Early Life and Achievements
Tarrian LaShun Pace was born on September 6, 1961, in a mostly Black community that would be disappeared without a trace by the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s expansion.
Her father, Murphy, was a carpenter. Her mother, Bettie Ann, cleaned classrooms at a school. Both parents were active ministers in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC).
Pace was the fifth of 10 children, with one brother named M.J. and eight sisters: Duranice, Phyllis, June, Melonda, Dejuaii, Leslie, Latrice, and Lydia.
When some of the older children started to get in trouble, She prayed for help. She felt God tell her to gather the children to sing.
“And so she did,” Pace later wrote in her memoir. “God moved through her, crying out and praying to him..”
The girls eventually formed a gospel group. They sang at church and around the Atlanta area and won a COGIC Award for Best Gospel Group.
The two were also on the road with Gene Martin and Action Revival Team who had been in close collaboration with A.A. Allen until he passed away in 1970 from an illness.
It’s safe to say LaShun Pace had a successful career at an early age. Throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s she saw her fair share of successes working with some major up-and-coming gospel musicians like Edwin Hawkins and Jonathan Greer.
Marriage & Last Words
Pace got married to her music/business manager husband Eddie Rhodes at 25 years old. When the minister asked “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” at their Black Baptist church, Pace’s father said, “I do.”.
Much later she would wonder if he intuitively knew it was a bad idea from the start.
Within a year of marriage, Pace discovered that her husband had been cheating on her with men.
She found a love letter from a boyhood friend, and when she confronted him, he confessed to having 10 or 12 homosexual affairs. These encounters also included several men she knew.
In 1986, Pace writes in her memoir, Rhodes was diagnosed with HIV. the virus that can cause AIDS.
The couple was still trying to make the marriage work and then they were both surprised to find out Pace was pregnant with their daughter Xenia.
LaShun Pace and Rhodes continued to argue and fight, but they disagreed about everything when they were at home or in the studio.
“I would see myself and I hated what I saw,” Pace wrote. “We were supposed to be Christians, saved people, not carrying on like sinners. But we were and we did.”
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She didn’t tell her mother what was happening but I think she went to her one day and asked for prayer. Bettie Ann came back and said she’d heard from the Lord: “The Lord said you can’t depend on mother’s prayers anymore but now you’ve got to know him for yourself.
As Pace continued to struggle in her marriage, she produced her first solo gospel album. It was He Lives. She praised God for his power in her life.
The album went to No. 2 on Billboard’s gospel charts.
The husband continued to cheat and the couple would fight, but as soon as Pace asked God to let her out of the marriage.
“God, Lord please forgive me,” she prayed. “But I can’t take this no more.”
She knew that God would take care of her.
“I knew down on the inside that everything was going to be alright,” Pace later wrote. “Now I didn’t know how long it was going to take before everything would be back to normal, but all I knew was [that] he told me, and that made me feel better.”
Her second child was born without daddy, so her sisters were there for support and sang ‘Amazing Grace’ to her during labor. Shortly after she released her second album, Shekinah Glory and it went up to No. 5 on the Billboard chart
Pace believed that the Holy Spirit would carry her through whatever happened and that she would always be close to God. In 2007, she shared with the Atlanta Voice about the pain of her life, stating that it just brought her closer to Jesus.
“It has helped me get to know God a little better,” she said. “I’ve grown closer to Him and learned to listen for His guidance.”
She has been struggling with her health in the 2010s but remains active in the church. Her song “Act Like It” from 1996 went viral on TikTok in 2022.
It appears in hundreds of thousands of videos, briefly reviving interest in another album before Pace’s health declined further.
And on March 21, she left this world. All we want to say is that she was a great inspiration to many people across the globe… and our prayers should be directed to the family.
So, what do you guys think about Pace? Thank you for reading…