Smokie Norful

With his soulful tenor vocals and an unerring ability to fuse contemporary gospel with hip-hop sensibilities, Smokie Norful is among the brightest lights on the gospel scene. An internationally renowned pastor and educator, Norful found mainstream success in the early 2000s with Need You Now and Nothing Without You, the latter of which won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album. Since then, he has topped the Billboard charts multiple times and earned a string of awards, including his second Grammy in 2015 for the single "No Greater Love." I Still Have You, Norful's seventh studio album, appeared in 2024, featuring the hit single of the same name.

The son of an African Methodist Episcopal minister, Norful spent his first 14 years in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he absorbed music ranging from sacred gospel to the secular soul that was popular at the time, and both strains would serve him well when he began his professional singing career. By the age of two he was picking out melodies on piano, by four he was actively playing and singing in his father's church, and by ten he was a featured artist on a custom album assembled by a regional music director. Although music was his enduring passion, Norful instead opted to study history at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, eventually working as a history instructor for four years before relocating to Chicago in 1998 in order to earn a Master of Divinity degree from Garrett Theological Seminary.

After his graduation, Norful remained in Chicago as an assistant pastor at the Rock of Ages Baptist Church and stayed active in various church choirs, eventually catching the ear of Joe Anne Brunson, leader of the Thompson Community Choir, who asked him to sing one of his original songs for the choir's Real album, which essentially launched Norful's professional singing career. Norful has characterized his music as "urban inspirational," an apt term that allows him to stretch the boundaries of traditional gospel while remaining true to its purpose. His gold-selling debut solo album, I Need You Now, was released by EMI Gospel and Chordant in 2002. It spent 104 weeks on the Billboard Gospel Albums charts and 38 weeks on the R&B/Hip-Hop charts. The Dove Award-winning live album Limited Edition appeared the following year, paving the way for Norful's sophomore studio effort, Nothing Without You. Released in 2004, the LP earned Norful a Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album Grammy Award. Norful kept the momentum going with 2006's Life Changing, which included the gospel radio hits "Celebrate" and "Um Good," and 2009's Smokie Norful Live, which featured the Dove Award-winning single "Justified.

Recorded live in Chicago at the Fellowship Baptist Church, Smokie Norful Presents Victory Cathedral Choir was released in 2010 with the star-studded How I Got Over...Songs That Carried Us, featuring Sherri Jones-Moffet, Myron Butler, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Melvin Williams, and Joe Ligon, arriving the following year. The reflective Once in a Lifetime and Forever Yours appeared in 2012 and 2014, respectively, with Nothing Is Impossible, featuring the reggae-tinged title cut, arriving in 2017. The 2020 retrospective Smokie Norful Collection brought Norful's music into the next decade, and in 2024, he issued his seventh studio long-player, I Still Have You. ~ Steve Legget & James Christopher Monger, Rovi