Just when you thought that VaShawn Mitchell had given you his best on the songs he wrote for gospel greats like Bishop Paul Morton (“Cry Your Last Tear”), Smokie Norful (“Just Can’t Stop”), and Vanessa Bell Armstrong (“Help”), he makes his gospel debut with Triumphant.
Mitchell has a creamy, warm baritone voice that possesses the ideal timbre for the popular single, “Nobody Greater.”
“My emotions were everywhere,” says Mitchell of writing the songs for the CD. “I may have been watching TV and I would hear or see something. I went on the Tom Joyner Cruise last year. I didn’t make it to every media and music event, like I should have been on deck because I wanted to hear from God in a quiet and solemn place.
“Triumphant is to encourage everyone that there is nobody greater than the Lord. You should be triumphant no matter what you are going through. I actually wrote the project strategically to address what everyone has been going through this past year, like foreclosure and other financial situations. I realized that even people I knew in church were focusing on resources and not the source. I wanted to create a project on this album where every time they listen to this album they go back to the source to realize that God is greater.”
Don’t let Mitchell’s baby face and smooth countenance fool you. He is well versed on the subject of music. He served as the minister of music at Sweet Holy Spirit Church in his Chicago hometown, for nearly a decade, before moving to Atlanta and teaming with Darius Paulk on this project.
Mitchell is a newbie to Facebook and Twitter and has an affinity for both social media vehicles. “I am just recently getting used to Facebook and Twitter … and I love it because it shows us who likes our music, who agrees with what we do and who supports us around the world. Twitter is so great to where you can have a conversation with someone you may not normally meet and they [get to] hear your music and you find out why they like your music and why they like other forms of music,” he says. –yvette caslin
