Spearman, Montell Jordan Top Gospel Airplay Today

Renee Spearman's You Chose Me, featuring Montell Jordan and Kim Burrell, has reached No. 1 on Billboard's Gospel Airplay chart. The song rose three places on the ranking dated 7 November 2026, giving Spearman her second No. 1 on the chart, Jordan his first ever, and Burrell her third.

For Montell Jordan, the moment is a remarkable turn in a long career. Thirty-one years ago he was topping the pop charts with a party anthem. Now he is topping the gospel charts with a ballad about being chosen by God, and the two songs could hardly sound more different.

You Chose Me Tops Billboard Gospel Airplay Chart

The climb was steady rather than sudden. On the chart dated 31 October, You Chose Me sat at No. 4, and a week later it had moved to the top. Billboard's Gospel Airplay ranking measures spins on gospel radio stations across the United States, so a No. 1 means the song is the most played gospel record in the country right now.

Spearman and Jordan wrote the song together, and it reflects on their faith and on the role faith has played in their musical careers. Reports describe it as a mid-tempo ballad built on alternating leads and call-and-response harmonies, with the three voices trading lines about being chosen by God for a purpose.

Spearman recruited Jordan and Burrell for the collaboration herself. It reunites her with Burrell, with whom she previously topped the Gospel Airplay chart in 2023-24 with Tap Into It (The Source), the first No. 1 on the chart for both of them at the time.

Montell Jordan First Gospel No 1 After R&B Stardom

Jordan is still widely known for his 1995 smash This Is How We Do It, which spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song became one of the defining R&B hits of the decade, and for years it was the record his name was attached to.

In 2010 he shifted his focus from secular music to ministry, becoming a worship leader at Victory World Church in Norcross, Georgia. Since then he has recorded faith-based music, bringing his R&B background into gospel, and You Chose Me is the clearest sign yet that the gospel world has embraced him on its own terms.

A first gospel No. 1 at this stage of a career is not a comeback in the usual sense. It is something rarer: an artist who walked away from one kind of fame and found a different kind of audience, one that cares less about chart history and more about whether the song is true.

Renee Spearman Second No 1 and Kim Burrell Third

For Spearman, the No. 1 is her second on Gospel Airplay. Her first came in 2019 with I Love Him, a collaboration with Hezekiah Walker that also topped the chart. A Grammy and Stellar nominee, she has been named one of BMI's Trailblazers of Gospel, and her work as a singer, songwriter and choir leader has put her alongside artists including Gladys Knight, Yolanda Adams and Dr Bobby Jones.

Burrell, meanwhile, colects her third No. 1 on the chart, adding to a career that has made her one of the most respected voices in gospel music. Her presence on the record gives it a weight that radio programmers clearly noticed, and her harmonies with Spearman are the moments listeners keep coming back to.

The gospel chart has been busy this month, as reported in Greatman Takit, Bassey Hold No. 1 With You Are Good, and the two No. 1s together say something about where gospel music is heading. The sound is broad, the audiences are global, and the line between worship music and chart music keeps getting thinner. Gospel music keeps finding new audiences, as reported in Mark Wills Releases Gospel Debut Live at Grand Ole Opry, and other voices are returning to worship music too, as covered in Takie Ndou Returns to Spirit of Praise With We Worship You.

Other gospel releases have been landing in the same season, including new worship music from Victoria Orenze, as covered in Victoria Orenze Releases I Believe to Close Just Believe, and a Christmas project from the Kingdom Heirs, as reported in Kingdom Heirs Announce A Kingdom Heirs Christmas EP. Gospel radio has rarely had this much to choose from at once.

What You Chose Me Means for Gospel Music

A chart-topper is only a number, but this one carries a story that radio cannot manufacture. Three singers from three different corners of gospel and R&B, a song about being chosen, and a slow climb from No. 4 to No. 1 on the strength of people asking to hear it again.

For Jordan, the No. 1 closes a circle that began in 2010 when he left the pop world behind. For Spearman, it confirms that her second act as a chart artist is no accident. And for Burrell, it is another reminder that a voice like hers never really leaves the top of the chart for long.

The song's message is simple enough to fit in its title, and that may be why it worked. Being chosen is not a complicated idea, but it is a powerful one, and three voices singing it together turned out to be exactly what gospel radio wanted to hear this week. Testimonies keep shaping the sound of gospel, as reported in Palesa Madisakwane: I Was in Hell Before Returning to Faith.

Whether You Chose Me stays at No. 1 next week is anyone's guess. What is certain is that a former R&B star, a gospel songwriter and one of the genre's great voices have made a record together that now sits at the top of American gospel radio, and nobody involved sounds like they expected it to happen quite this way.

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