Singer Danny Gokey wants to be seen as a "truth and love teller," encouraging fellow believers to be as "wise as serpents and gentle as doves." It's a powerful and important quest in a divided and chaotic culture — one in which biblical truth is sometimes treated with disdain. Regardless, Gokey believes there's a responsibility to speak about what's right, true, and good. "We should never get away from speaking the truth," Gokey recently told CBN News. "Truth sets people free."
Ultimately, he said some people will try to skirt what's biblical, real, and true — but humanity can't escape the facts and realities surrounding God's will. "We can sit there and protest gravity," Gokey said. "We can make laws against gravity. You can cancel people over saying gravity is real, or that fire is hot. But, the thing is ... it is what it is, and we're not doing any favors playing around and mincing words to make people happy." He added, "We need to have the truth that sets people free. So, I do want to speak truth, but I want to do [it] in love, and I just don't want to hit people on the head with it."
Gokey is carrying these ideals over to his latest music. His new album, "Sound of Heaven," seeks to point people toward hope and Christ, with eclectic songs helping listeners dive deeper into the eternal. "I always pray before I go into an album, because God is the greatest songwriter of all time," Gokey said. "And, I'm like, 'Lord, give me some inspiration,' because I believe when we get to Heaven, we're going to see that the sounds of Heaven are so diverse."
The singer said this variety of sound is captured on the new album, which was released on July 26.
To the newsmakers podcast, I'm Billie Hollowell, and this is a show where we go behind the headlines every day to bring you an interview with a pastor, entertainer, politician, or other notable news figure. And this is a show, again, it's daily, but it's based on our weekly TV show, which is also called Newsmakers. You can watch it on the CBN News channel and also on our YouTube page. And on this show, every day, we dive deep. It's a little more longer form with one of the people who you will often see on our Newsmakers show or across the CBN News platforms. On today's newsmakers, we welcome singer Danny Goki to talk about his new album, Sound of Heaven, his faith, his life, and how he got into the entertainment industry with no further ado. Here is Danny Goki. So Danny Goki, Sound of Heaven, this album is hitting this summer. Tell us about the inspiration for the title. I, OK, so there's a lot that went into this album and because I'm a person who's come from a very diverse background, you know, I'm raising a very so much culture being around me. And so I remember as I started writing the songs and seeing the different themes and the inspirations, I was like, man, this is a very eclectic album. And I was like, man, it's, there's a theme of hope, theme of Christ through all of it, but the sounds are different. So, you know, because people know it really CCM, there's gospel feel, there's that Latin there's, and when I wrote Sound of Heaven, I was like, this is it. This is how I put this all under the banner. It's the sound of heaven because I always pray before I go into an album because God is the greatest songwriter of all time. And I'm like, Lord, give me some inspiration because I believe when we get to heaven, we're going to see that the sounds of heaven are so diverse. And I just was able to capture a little bit into this album of the diversity because it's this creation's diverse, culture's diverse, you know, language is diverse. Like think about all that. And I love that I get to have this ability to wrap this in a sound and a thing all around Christ that can just go far, you know, can go beyond maybe what the norms and the standard is. Yeah, you know, your music's always that way. It always sounds different, which is unique. Like, I love that. A lot of artists, which is fine, everything you hear, you're like, oh, I know it's that person, but with you, it's like, no, that might be different than the last single you had. Absolutely. It's an intentional thing. I would imagine that in light of what you just said. Absolutely. And we have our lanes, you know, or you know, we have the lanes of the singles that go to the radio are typically these songs that, you know, fit that radio lane, but outside that lane, you know, like I just really saw called Dola and Mundo, which has Afro beats in it. I love Afro beats. Like I'd got into it last year. There's a lot of Christian Afro beat artists. So I was able to bring limo blaze onto it and then regga thrown artists into it. So you have this, this thing of like this gringo guy singing if we sing this bad as it speaks bad as with this, you know, Dominican guy and with this African guy. And it just came out to be really cool. I got some worship on this. I started a worship and so I was going back to some of those roots of writing worship songs that, you know, hopefully we'll be singing in church pretty soon. And then you have the hope songs, the hope that for me, I never want to just do something because this is what people say I should do and this is what makes money because there is that you can play this off. This is what makes the most money. And of course we got to survive. Sure. That would be so authentic to what God has created me to be. Yeah. Well, how do you, how do you deal with that? Right? Because that, that is a facet of the industry, whenever there's a tension on you and you're trying to bring attention to God, there's, I would imagine a tendency to get sucked into that. How do you keep yourself so grounded because you are incredibly grounded? Well, I mean, with, with all the hype that goes around us, right? Well, the thing, we never do well if we're trying to be something that we're not right. Whatever they say, like authenticity, if you read vibrations, like the whole world, the sound of vibrations and sounds and is the highest of the chart being authentic to who you are. And that's how God created me. So I always try to go back to that and not try to chase, of course we're here chasing a dream, right? Sure. The dream to do and buy the albums. It's, it's impressive. Yeah. Yeah. But chasing money to like, if you start chasing money, that becomes the God and what if God wants to reveal something new in you that maybe not be, make a lot of money yet, but will in the future? I don't know. Like, I'm a person that just, I like to experiment. I like to explore. I get bored easy. And so I kind of like to have to have this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you go back to the pre idle days, right, you go back to your life before and you look at like looking back on that now, what shocks you the most about the trajectory where you've been? Truth. I have to think about that, I obviously that at one point, like that people would know my music, you know, I didn't know, I kind of gave up my dream while I was doing ministry in a church. It was a worship leader and dry medicine. That this was over at 27, I told Lord, I think I missed my mark. I always do music because I love it. But thank God I was able to, that he wasn't done yet and that it was just about to be the beginning. Yeah. Things too about you that's interesting is joy, like you exude a lot of joy, right? And you've had hard times, you've had really hard times, you've publicly talked about, you've gone through things, you know, what has fame, you know, and achievement taught you even more so about joy as you've navigated the career over the past decade. One thing I do know is that joy is strength, right? And I've been on both sides of the spectrum where, you know, pain was draining me and, you know, disappointment was draining me. I want to be on the joy side, right? I've learned that fame doesn't give joy, puts more pressure on, celebrity doesn't give joy, puts pressure on you. But if we were very consistent and we're being like the Bible, so being formed into the likeness of Christ, there will always be joy because the kingdom of God is righteousness, joy and peace. These are the things that give us the strength to do a lot of people, they think that it's money, security and things, right? Those things will drain you if not in the right place, they're not bad. But if you don't have the kingdom of God in place, I just learned this through just being alive and experiencing myself like, man, nothing of the money will never give you that joy and peace. It'll give you security and it'll give you maybe a sense of pride, which is not good. Pride is coming for the fall. I look at me, I'm better than XYZ, all these people because I drive this, have this. No, right to this joy and peace are the goal. And if you have those in order, typically you'll be very successful in wealth, you'll be successful in family, you'll be successful in business. So these three come first before those others. Do you ever ponder what would have happened? You talked about your dream before. Had you not gone on American Idol? Had you not? I mean, you were going through a really difficult time, obviously, loss of your wife. You went and you did that. Do you ever think about that? What life would be like? I was just thinking about it last week, I was thinking, what would I be like? Because there's, no matter what anyone says, this will change you if you're not guarding your heart. It will. It's changed me. And I'm not saying that's bad or it's good. I'm just saying change is inevitable because it's, you know, there's different pressures applied. Like if you have the powder and the clay, there's different pressures, fame and celebrity and being in a public eye have a different pressure than no fame, not being in a public eye, not having an audience that follows you on social media. You know, if you don't have an audience and you don't, and people don't care what you say, you don't put a lot of weight into that. So I think the pressure, I wondered, I wonder what would my life be like if I didn't get this journey? I wonder. Yeah. I'll tell you this. I don't think, I don't think this is any better than that. That's what I'm on this side realized. This is no better than that. I've seen the world from both sides from the non household name, non celebrity, non known to this. And I actually think there's a, there is even a greater joy to be seen in this than there is this because this pressure is, can affect a lot of decisions. And if we know this, Jesus didn't do things for the crowd, he said, I only see what my father do. And I think living here with no pressure, it's easier to do that than it is here. Yeah. No. And I mean, in light of that, and this is a question I ask a lot, I may have even asked you in the past, but I want to revisit it because I think it's important. You think about legacy, you know, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, looking back, you know, what do you want your legacy to have been in music with what you did with your name and your time? I love that question. Cause I think about that now. I think about that a lot. I think because more than every form of thinking legacy minded, I'm not thinking for the moment, you know, I pray just through the scripture verse that I think is an action. It said that, and I'm going to misquote it, but it's there. There's not false doctrine that God had David's heart and he did all that he will do David. I think that is the key. I want God to do all that he wills, the accomplishes will through me and because God before you and I and for the listener who's watching right now became his earth, there was a book specifically written in heaven about your life, my life. And my goal is to fulfill that. But when that's someone 39, you can see about, you know, he knew all my days before I lived them out, written as written in a book, Psalm 27, David said, don't hand me to the will of my enemies. I mean, there is a will and a written plan for our life. So the will, I want my heart to be so open before God to say, God used me. I want you to take me. I want to fulfill that plan that you had before I even walked one day on earth. Yeah. I know that that's incredible. I mean, that's what we all need to aspire to, right? No matter what we're doing, right? Not just music, no matter where you are in life, you know, I all I often think about when you have a platform like you have, there are things that people want you to say or not say and they're things you want to say and not say and you're in a world where there's so much going on. How do you weigh that responsibility? Because you're inspiring people through music, but I'm sure you have to hold yourself back sometimes. I do. So I've been through this for the last four years. I've learned a lot about social media, saying and what not to say. But I want to be a truth teller, you know, there's there's no point in beating around the bush. Now truth and love teller, right? Not just a truth teller. I think there's such words are so polarizing now that we have to recognize the state we're in and you know, to be wisest, servants and gentlest doves. But I think we should never get away from speaking the truth and truth sets people free. You know, I'm reading a book right now called erasing how and there's a lot of people don't talk about how anymore. Right? People don't even believe in it. Yeah. They don't because there's because we we polarize out of the scriptures. And as I'm reading this book, I'm like, man, this is so needed right now because it's the truth. Whether you want to believe it or not, like whether you believe, you know, we live in a day and age where we can kind of outlaw truth, right? We can sit there and protest gravity. We can we can make laws against gravity and cancel people. Yeah, you can cancel people over saying gravity is real or that fires hot. But the thing is, is that it is what it is and you're not doing any favors. You know, playing around and mincing words to make people happy. We need to have the truth that says people free. So I do want to speak truth, but I want to do in a love and I just don't want to hit people on the head with it. Yeah. No, you know, and I want to ask you to because you do a lot of really powerful work through better than I found it. So let's talk about that because that's another piece of your legacy and your life. I think what makes things. I think what makes things more effective is that we show the love of Christ more than we talk about it because talk is cheap. That is words. They seem to have no value, although they do, but be treated like it doesn't. But Matthew 5, 16 is that let your lights are shine before me and that they see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. We were just doing a better that I found it gave back yesterday. She was a 16 year old girl who at 10 years old started her mom worked for nursing homes and she went there and she would talk to the seniors in a nursing home and she would ask them if you had three wishes, what would they be? And she thought it would be Lamborghini's money. They just wanted a candy bar. They wanted socks. They wanted to see family and she couldn't believe it. So she started her nonprofit at 10 years old, granting three wishes. So we went there yesterday and we we found out that the roof of her nonprofit was leaking. So we fixed her roof. We found out that her kitchen need redone. So we did a whole new kitchen makeover for her in her community center. And what was the last thing we did? We did one more. We did one more thing. Oh, we we had Amazon wish list where we had all these people send stuff and then we asked her mom. We surprised her. So we surprised with this. Then we asked her mom. We said, what's her three wishes? She's a 16 year old. Wow. And her mom said, well, her daughter's simple. And so she wanted candy bar, you know, candy, her favorite candy makeup and then we heard that her dog passed away. So we bought her a new dog. Oh, wow. It is going out. Find the people who are changing the world in their corners of the world. And we find out what they need so they can keep going and be inspired to keep doing what they're doing. I love that. You know, that's that's the doing that we were talking about. Yeah. Right. Like, how does that change you? You know, because you're out there. You're helping these other people. Like, what does that do for you? For me, I just love that it gets me out my own bubble and I can see like I didn't I didn't realize this, but I started thinking about, you know, they brought something doing this give back yesterday, it they brought the fact that 90% in their area of the seniors living in the facilities don't see any family. That's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I mean, these are people who've built our world who were who gave who were chosen at one time who in the workforce, who now are forgotten in nursing homes. We hear a lot about, you know, saving whales about cleaning the earth, but you don't hear much about go visit and love on the elderly. And I love that I have to see it because I want to do more now and I think bringing these issues up, hopefully we can we call it redeeming the feed. What we do is we want to do these stories so we can put on our feed so we can redeem what is so nasty out there. The feeds are nasty on social media. And there's so many great things happening that people don't even hear about, right? Because it doesn't sell. It doesn't sell. Yeah, it's incredible. All right. So I want to as we close out, I want to bring it back to sound of heaven. At the end of the day, this album comes out end of July when people hear this, when they finish the album, what do you want them thinking and feeling? I hope they feel the joy of the Lord. I hope they feel the kingdom of God very near, right? I want them to experience the power and the presence of God through this album. And I want to take, hopefully take people out of the box that, you know, although I do worship at this album, there's a lot of joy in this album, there's a lot of upbeat. We got to stop putting God in this box right here if he's only this. As Christians, we do that. God is only in worship hands up, slow song. Yeah. Some people won't even allow the other music, right? They won't, right now because they think that it's, we have a separation of sacred and what are they called sacred and the world and the church. Sure. It's time to come together. It's time to come together and understand if they think they're just going to be like this and heaven, oh, they will be showing, but there's going to be a lot of joy. There's going to be some of the best music you ever heard in heaven and it won't be slow songs. It'll be a good mix although some of it will be. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a great point because I think people get really negative on mute. I mean, I've heard Christians say, oh, no, no, no. You can't be that. It has to be worship music and it's like, but that message can really resonate with people and it does, right? There's no reason you can't have joy and dance and also you don't have to always be crying and wiping tears from your eyes so that that's one aspect. We got created as a full spectrum. We have all the emotion that he has. We should be running, shouting, leaving for joy and that's still just a spiritual. You don't remember worship is living a life under God, Romans 12, one, we're keeping your body, you know, it's the will of God. Not what we think we've kind of got away from our scriptures a little bit. Well, I love that. I love it. The album is sound of heaven. Danny Gokki. Appreciate your time. Thank you, Bailey. That's all for today's Newsmakers podcast. Be sure to tune in for the next episode of the show and also head over to the CBN News YouTube channel and the CBN News channel to watch Newsmakers every week. We'll see you soon. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]
