Latest: Kirk Franklin Releases First Double Album I Am What I Am With Davido, GloRilla and Jelly Roll

At a listening session in Atlanta on October 12, Davido did something no guest star is obliged to do. He performed a verse, and then, according to DancehallMag, he folded himself into the choir. For a few minutes, one of the biggest Afrobeats stars in the world was not the featured act. He was one voice among many, singing a song called Hope In You, in the first public preview of Kirk Franklin's new album.

Kirk Franklin released I Am What I Am on Friday, October 30, 2026. BGospel describes it as the first double album of his career: 14 tracks split into seven studio recordings and seven songs recorded live in church, with a choir, a band and a live audience. The album is listed on Apple Music under Fo Yo Soul Recordings and TRIBL Music Group, under exlusive license to Uptown Records, according to BGospel.

BGospel reports Franklin is 56, and that the release comes more than three decades after his debut album, released in July 1993. He is known for songs such as Stomp, I Smile and Love Theory, and the new album's title, in his own account, is his answer to three decades of scrutiny.

This Time: A Number One Built on 1.7 Million Streams

The lead single, This Time, featuring Memphis rapper GloRilla, was released on September 25. It debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Gospel Songs chart dated October 10, giving Franklin his tenth No. 1 on the chart and making him the first artist to reach that mark since the ranking launched in 2005, as reported by BGospel citing Billboard figures reported by Gospel Register and EURweb.

BGospel reports, citing those Billboard figures, that This Time drew about 1.7 million U.S. streams, a radio audience of 2.5 million and 1,000 sales in its first tracking week. Those figures are attributed here exactly as the research attributes them: Billboard figures via BGospel, Gospel Register and EURweb, not as figures verified independently for this article.

The chart position is a milestone, but the song's sound is the story Franklin seems proudest of. A gospel choir, a Memphis rapper, and a chorus built to be sung back by a room full of people.

Seven Studio Songs, Seven Live Songs

The studio side features Free Me Tonight with Jelly Roll, This Time with GloRilla, Hope In You with Nigerian star Davido and It Gets Better with Tobe Nwigwe, alongside Able, Do It Again and Stay, as reported by BGospel. The guest list crosses gospel, country, hip-hop and Afrobeats, and it does so without asking any of the guests to sound like anyone but themselves.

The live side features Someday, It Is Well, Welcome In, Holy, Beautiful Thorns, Thank You For Everything featuring Karen Clark Sheard of The Clark Sisters, and closing track Time featuring Tim Rogers, as reported by BGospel. The live recordings, with choir, band and audience, are the album's second half and its emotional centre: the sound of a church room, not just a studio.

DancehallMag reports Davido attended the album listening session in Atlanta on October 12, performed a verse and folded himself into the choir, in the first public preview of Hope In You. The collaboration landed on Friday, October 30, 2026, on the 14-track album, according to the same report.

I Am What I Am: The Title in Franklin's Own Words

BGospel reports the album title comes from Franklin's response to three decades of scrutiny, quoting him from a public conversation hosted by Darlene of The Nightly Spirit, reported by Black America Web on October 24.

Whatever you think of me, whatever your view is, good, bad, or ugly, I am what I am.

That quote is reproduced here only as quoted in the research, attributed to that conversation and report. It is not presented as a fresh interview for this article, and no other Franklin quotation has been invented or paraphrased into direct speech.

BGospel also reports Franklin restated his commitment to traditional Black gospel, choirs and Hammond organs, and previewed the album at an exclusive listening party ahead of release, according to Urban Bridgez on October 23, 2026. The Hammond organ in the room, the choir on the risers, the live audience answering back: those are not nostalgia for Franklin. They are the instruments he built a career on, and the ones this double album returns to.

Readers can find related coverage in the worship night where nearly 600 students turned to Christ in Alabama, in the Pastor Lazarus Muoka miracle crusade in Uyo, and in the Senegal man's testimony of passing two kidney stones during Healing Streams. The common thread is live faith, sung and witnessed in a room, and Franklin's new record is built to sound like being in that room.

What a Double Album Asks of Its Listeners

A double album is a risk, even for an artist with ten gospel number ones. It asks listeners to stay for both halves: the polished studio collaborations and the rawer live recordings.

Will This Time hold its chart position, will Hope In You travel the way Davido's choir moment in Atlanta suggested it might, and will a record split between studio and sanctuary find the audience that has followed Franklin since 1993, plus the new listeners GloRilla, Jelly Roll and Davido bring with them? The streams and the radio audience will answer the first part soon enough, but the longer answer will be heard in churches, cars and headphones, one choir at a time.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.