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Photo courtesy of shei atkins video "Another Me" via AT2W

Former Gospel Singer Shei Atkins Has New Music Out That Clearly Shows She’s R&B Now

Back in August of last year, we reported that Shei Atkins, former gospel artists announced her decision to leave gospel music and pursue R&B music instead. Her decision was made mostly in part by the flack she was receiving from the Christian community that thought her music was not ‘holy’ enough. We were surprised to hear that the church even complained about it since hip hop and new age gospel trends are so accepted today.

Here is some of what we covered then and what she had to say about it:

In an interview with Christian Post,  she stated this about how people were reacting to her music style, appearance and lyrics.

“The messed up thing about the Christian community is that there is a religious and judgmental mentality inside of it that holds us back and keeps us from loving people when it comes to music. I can’t sing about life, love, and relationships under the Gospel title. It’s not because I don’t want to. It’s because of the mentality a lot of Christians have about music.”

“The thing is that when some people heard R&B on my albums they were like, this is not Gospel and the judgment began,” she wrote. “I had fans who loved me on one side and people condemning me on the other side calling me worldly, pulling me to the side at some of my shows about my hair color, sending in mean letters, etc.”

She stated it has almost ended her marriage:

“I make songs to help instill love, honesty, faithfulness and communication back into relationships,” she stated.

“I deal with life, love and relationships. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s my call,” she said. “People need what God has put inside of me. Do you know that about 50% of CHRISTIAN marriages end in divorce? But I was judged for singing songs that spoke life into people. That hurt me so bad.”

So, it was clear that even then she felt she suffered greatly from the rejection from the church. Well, as promised, she has moved on and is producing pure R&B music. We thought about her recently and wanted to see what she was doing.

Here’s a video of her new music and we think she is doing just what she wants to without the church.