‘Let The Praise Begin’ at 2023 Urban League Expo

The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis (ULSTL) is organizing its 2023 Urban Expo next weekend, Friday Aug. 4-Saturday, Aug. 5, at America’s Center located at 701 Convention Plaza. The expo includes a back to school and community festival, job fair, vendors, resources, and more.

National multi-award winning gospel singer, songwriter, and producer Fred Hammond will perform a variety of his classic chart-topping hits at ULSTL’s Grill To Glory Urban Expo Gospel Explosion main stage at 2 p.m. Saturday at America’s Center. St. Louis Christian radio and TV personality Scooda will host the gospel explosion.

According to ULSTL’s website, “Grill to Glory provides an inviting community activity each week that encourages and draws neighborhood family participation.” 

Hammond did a phone interview with The St. Louis American discussing what fans can expect from his mainstage concert, his impact in gospel music, upcoming projects and more.

Fans and supporters are in for an anointed treat, and can expect a lot of great energy experiencing a Fred Hammond concert live.

“I’m a regular guy and I love God,” Hammond said. “Just come out, they’ll have an amazing time. I’m comedic. I deal with real life stuff and the music itself is gonna speak for itself. At some point in time we go all the way back. We do oldies, we do goodies, we do whatever else. We give God the glory. It's going to be fun. I’m not a stick in the mud type of person. We’re gonna laugh, we're going to have a ball, and we're going to sing favorites everyone enjoys cause that’s what people are coming for.”

Hammond, a Detroit native has been a staple in gospel music for over 40+ years for his work with the group Commissioned, his own music group Radical For Christ, and solo career success.

His solo career spanned mega hits “No Weapon” “We’re Blessed” “Jesus Be A Fence” and more, along with selling over 8 million albums including “Purpose By Design” “Spirit of David” and “Pages of Life: Chapters I & II.”

“I look at it as being effective and doing what I was meant to do—my calling,” he replied after he was asked about his legacy in gospel music. “I made a decision. I wanted to tell people about The Lord. I’m not a great speaker. I’m not a preacher, but I have a way of ministering through music and that was what I dedicated myself to. If you take care of God’s business he’ll take care of yours.”

Hammond shared his plans to retire from making full-length albums by releasing his last project of that format at the end of this year or the beginning of 2024. The album is for day-one Fred Hammond friends and fans and it will be released differently from how he’s done past projects.

“It won’t be a thing where it's necessarily gonna be on streaming platforms at all,” he said. “It’ll be me saying thank you to everybody. And giving an opportunity for the real fans of Fred Hammond supporters to say ‘Hey man thanks for the memories, and I’m allowing people to invest in it with me.’ They’ll actually be able to make money when they purchase this piece. It's a new concept and I will let everybody know how to do it.”

Die-hard fans might question why he’s retiring from making albums. Hammond talked about getting older and the music industry not being what it once was.

“The industry has changed and basically taken all the value out of music. They’ve taken the value out of it. They found a way to allow artists to work very hard and to put their work out there but to not reward them.”

He added how streaming dampens how artists can keep track of their music and the costs that go into it.  Hammond pointed out that people behind the scenes of making music aren’t being fairly compensated either.

“They sucked the life out of the music,” he said. “I’ll still make some singles here and there if The Lord sees fit, but I’ve kind of moved into a new genre. This will be my last full album and I wanna be able to enjoy it.”

Hammond also recently announced his retirement from Commissioned.

“God gave me the vision for what that group was supposed to be, but other visions sprang up,” he said. “God is speaking to one person, but everybody believes he’s speaking to them. The group is being torn into many different directions, and it's ineffective. It's not doing anything. I’ll go back to what I’m doing where it's one vision.  We move in that direction, and we’re effective.”

He’s reducing his production of musical recordings; however, Hammond has been getting his feet wet with directing plays and films. This year his new stage play “Hoodbook” will tour city to city for 4-6 weeks on a test run. Dates and venues haven’t been announced, yet.

“It's a story of a young kid who doesn’t believe God loves him because he’s aging out of the foster care system and his mother and father died when he was four in a car accident,” he said. “He doesn’t know where he’s gonna go. An older lady related to him finds him and let’s him stay with her. While there, he finds an old book with nothing written on the page. When he puts on his Oculus game piece he’s then brought to the Garden of Eden where he finds several animals and realizes everything in the garden is similar to him.”

Hammond calls it a cross between “The Lion King” “Hamilton” and “The Wiz”.

He was supposed to join Kirk Franklin’s “The Reunion Tour” but is unable to due to his play going on the road around the same time as the tour.

“I was gonna be there with some Radical For Christ members,” he said. “It was gonna be great. I think it's gonna be one of the greatest tours ever so people should support it. I hate that I can’t be on it. There may be times I’ll just show up sometimes and hang out. It's gonna be great.”

Hammond gave some uplifting advice to non-believers of God and those who may be struggling with their faith.

“I would say to people that there's gonna come a time that they’re going to feel something on the inside or on the outside that tells them that God is real and don’t ignore it,” he said. 

“Before you totally give up or walk away I’m gonna tell you to pray and ask God to show himself to you. It doesn’t have to be no long, drawn out, “I beseech you,”  –  what's the words you use… Just say, “Lord help me and show me that you’re real.” It may not come in a mystical sign, but it can come in the form of peace, in the form of joy. It may come in the form of when everybody else is losing their head for some reason you’ve got peace. Seek God on that red level before you give up. Give God a try.”

Stay up to date on Hammond on his website http://www.realfredhammond.com/.