Legendary gospel artist Marvin Sapp made a joyful noise as he ran through a litany of hits that spanned his thirty-plus-year career.
NPR’s Tiny Desk has had the ultimate glow-up over the past few years. The musical concert platform, which is literally a performance at a desk in NPR’s Washington, D.C., office, has become known for iconic performances. So many artists have performed there that it’s hard to whittle down a list of favorites, but artists like Usher, Doechii, Raphael Saadiq, Chaka Khan, Wale, etc., have all graced the “stage.”
And who can forget Juvenile’s legendary Tiny Desk performance in 2023? What started out as somebody on X suggesting that Juvey do a performance to him, not having any idea what she was talking about, led to one of, if not the, greatest song of all time, “Back That Thang Up,” being performed and streamed onto the devices of millions of people.
What a time to be alive.
The latest entrant to perform music that all Black people know and love is Marvin Sapp. Sapp, who got his musical start with the gospel group, Commissioned in the 1990s and then stepped into a solo musical career, is pretty much a household name in gospel music. In 2007, his biggest hit, “Never Would Have Made It,” hit the Billboard R&B charts and topped the Billboard Hot Gospel charts—it even has an amazing trap remix that became an internet sensation. As soon as it was announced that Sapp was hitting the Desk, I knew I needed to see that song performed on it.
Running through eleven records that span nearly 30 years of recording—“Not the Time, Not the Place” is from his 1997 album “Grace & Mercy”—Sapp performed familiar records that have been a part of the fabric of the Black music ministry for as long as I can remember. Songs like “I Believe,” which absolutely make you get out of your seat and bust out a praise dance (some songs you have to listen to in full to truly appreciate), to “He Has His Hands On You,” hit you in your hand. Sapp’s voice is as familiar to me as my own pastor back in Madison, Alabama.
But like everybody who was familiar with Sapp in that room, “Never Would Have Made It” is the song that I would wager most folks are waiting to hear. The camera on the video cuts to the audience, and you see hands in the air and folks doing the praise-wave thing we all watched our parents did from the back pew when somebody was up in the choir stand sanging. Not singing, but sanging; there’s a difference.
“Never Would Have Made It” is the kind of record that always seems to be performed at the time when somebody listening needs to hear it most. This audience was no different.
And so were the people who watched the video. The comments section was exactly as expected.
“These songs went quadruple platinum in my house,” said one user.
Another commenter was everybody who watched this YouTube video of the performance at home: “It’s the Black folks in the audience hitting that church wave on Never Would Have Made It. Lol. I love us real bad!”
But most importantly and most significantly, and especially during the last day of Black History Month, which is the day the video hit the Internet, one commenter said exactly what we’ve all been thinking for the past few years that Tiny Desk has leveled all the way up: “Give that person who thought of sending Marvin Sapp an invitation a well deserved raise!!!!!! We need this right now!!!!!!!!! Who is next up to shout praise!!!!”
Hallelujah.
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