Gospel Music spotlight: Gbenga Owoeye-Wise

I owned Gbenga's first cd. Well, kind of - someone made me a copy and I remember playing it at my house when I had company. It was really popular until one of my "friends" finally stole it. Is it considered stealing if the person who takes the stuff tells you they took it, but have no intention of returning it? Hmmm!!
After I threatened fire and brimstone, and was met was met with no response, I finally went to investigate how to get another copy. I guess my loss was your gain, and I guess, Gbenga's too, because I bought a legitimate copy and now I can tell you where to get yours too.

Bottomline is, his music is that good - for praise or for worship. Back when he released the first cd, it was THE cd - very popular!! Unfortunately though, Mr Wise does not seem to be as prolific as many of his colleagues in terms of output, and its hard to find his stuff on youtube or any of the usual online suspects. In fact, after some intensive digging, this was all I could find to show you:




This song is from his second cd "colorful". It is unfortunate, but he does not seem to have produced anything since that album in 2004.

A little about him:

His name is GBENGA OWOEYE-WISE but he’s called GBENGA WISE by his fans since he came into the mainstream gospel scene in 1992. Gbenga’s musical career began as a praise and worship leader in a local church in Lagos Nigeria called Winners Chapel. He served under the leadership of Bishop David Oyedepo in what is one of the fastest growing churches in the world. Gbenga was a worship leader there for seven years to the congregation of over sixty thousand members. As an up and coming vocalist his fisrt cd was released in 1995 as a dual. He was profoundly involve in church ministries through music and was tenacious in this domain. He joined the House on the Rock Church in Lagos in 1997 as the Praise and Worship leader there. In 2000 he traveled to the United States with group of church members to attend the Potters House in Dallas, Texas (Pastored by Bishop T.D Jakes) to perform at the dedication ceremony of their new auditorium. Gbenga has now made to transition to lving in the U.S. and over the past few years he has ministered in songs many churches through his powerful music. He recently performed at a concert hosted by Bobby Jones on aids awareness in Harlem New York. Gbenga recently won the Nigerian Entertainment Awards 2006 for the Best Gospel Artist.

source

Gbenga, despite being out of circulation, still has two great cds out, which are widely available for purchase. African praise 1 was one of the first and most popular praise compilation cds out there. It was released in 2003. The second album colorful was released in 2004. Both are widely available for purchase. You can find them on amazon and I suspect itunes (which I still refuse to use!!), and cdbaby among several other online sources.

You can learn more about him on facebook and on his myspace page.

Enjoy!!