Minneapolis has always been a city that bends genres to its will, and this summer two of its most resilient gospel voices are carrying that legacy to the South. On June 3, Central City Productions unveiled the nominees for the 41st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards at the Charlotte Convention Center, and when the dust settled across 31 categories, two Twin Cities institutions stood among the chosen: Sounds of Blackness and Jovonta Patton. The ceremony, themed “Feels Like Home,” will be taped live at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday, August 15, with 45-time Stellar winner and 20-time Grammy recipient Kirk Franklin returning as host. It marks the first time gospel’s biggest night touches down in the Queen City.
A drumline-powered anthem
Sounds of Blackness enters the race in the Contemporary Choir of the Year category for “We’re Unstoppable,” a thunderous collaboration featuring lead vocalist Jamecia Bennett, NUNNABOVE, and the Atlanta Drum Academy. The track is pure Sounds of Blackness alchemy: gospel fervor welded to R&B, hip-hop swagger, and the martial pulse of a drumline, extending a tradition the ensemble has been refining for more than half a century.
The group traces its origins to 1969 at Macalester College in St. Paul, where Russel Knight assembled its earliest incarnation. Everything changed in 1971, when Gary Hines stepped in as musical director, opened the doors to the wider community, and reframed the ensemble as a living archive of Black music across every genre. Under Hines, the 40-voice choir and ten-piece orchestra became a cultural force, drawing the attention of Minneapolis hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who signed them to Perspective Records in the early 1990s. The partnership produced the immortal “Optimistic,” along with “The Pressure,” “Soul Holidays,” and “Hold On (Change Is Comin’).”
Three Grammy Awards and four Stellar Awards later, Sounds of Blackness has never abandoned its dual mission of praise and protest, collecting NAACP Image Award nominations for socially charged singles like “Time for Reparations” and “Thankful.” Bennett, who inherited the lead role from her mother, original frontwoman Ann Nesby, anchors the current lineup, while Hines, honored in 2025 with Minnesota’s A.P. Anderson Award, continues to steer the ship. A fifth Stellar would only deepen the legend.
The pastor with a pop-gospel heart
Jovonta Patton, meanwhile, lands in the Praise and Worship Song of the Year field for “Your Name,” released through Newton Street Entertainment and Integrity. The worship anthem is no underdog: it climbed to No. 1 on both the Billboard Gospel Airplay and Mediabase Gospel charts, the latest peak in a career built almost entirely on independent grit…