Taking African Gospel Music To The Next Level With 6Team

6Team is a five man group on a musical mission to take Gospel music to the next level. This group is made up of two sets of brothers and a friend. For the past nine years, this group has been getting accolades for the inspirational works that they have put together. Unlike many groups that fall apart after a couple of years of successes, 6Team has maintained their friendship and their mission which is to spread the message of God’s love to all.

Meet Contemporary Nigerian Christian Group 6Team:

How did you guys meet and start performing together?

We used to sing in the same neighborhood and play together. A couple of us were already performing in church choirs. Since we were already friends with the love of music and Christ in common – it seemed to come together for us to all perform together. That is how the whole concept of 6Team came together which is a team of brothers and friends with Jesus in the center coming together to praise God.

I know that you have an album currently released in the United Kingdom? How has the reception been?

Yes, we released our second album in the UK. It is a double CD album and the names of the CDs are “approved” (worship session) and “get loose” (praise session). The response in the United Kingdom has been great so far. We will be coming to the UK in the next three to four weeks to promote this album at different venues in the UK. We intend to release the album in Nigeria towards the end of this year.

I love that name “get loose”. What kind of gospel fusion should we be expecting in that album?

Get loose is contemporary Christian music with a fusion reggae, hip hop, pop, rock with its base in African music. We try to maintain some pieces of African elements in our music.

So has the team struggled in any way in terms of collaborating with other artists that many might consider as being “worldly”?

Not really. We know what we are here to do and that has not stopped us in any way from collaborating with anyone. We all have our different gifts and talents and they are all from God.

I know that on your new CD, listeners should be expecting something definitely hot and spicy from your group. I also know that there are some hot collaborations with some heavy weight Nigerian musicians – can you please name some of them?

Yes, we have a collaboration with Rugged Man on the song, Holy Ghost party. We also worked with OJB Jezreel who wrote African Queen which is one of the top songs in the continent. We also have Dare Art Alade and Cobhams collaborating on this cd as well to mention a few.

Has the group ever performed in a non Christian setting? If so, how were the performance and the reception?

Definitely. We have performed at the African shrine with Femi Kuti. We have performed in places, where people will be smoking Indian hemp (marijuana), be drunk, loud and obnoxious. But we know that the group is up there preaching a positive message and that is what we are all about. To be quite frank, if the message is for someone in that place, regardless of how smoked up they are – the message will cut across to that person. In most cases, we have been received very positively in the places that we have performed. Of course, we have had occasions, that after performing – the next musician who come across will start of his song with comments like “now ladies, it is time to shake that a$$”(Laughs)

Has the group had any challenges so far?

Yes, we do get the same kind of pressure from the external market to make our music more commercialized. I know it seems kind of surprising since one will believe that within gospel music, that really shouldn’t be a concern but it often times is.

It is a well known fact that the Nigerian market is very competitive. How does your group handle the fact that your style of performance or music might be copied and you might loose your audience?

Well, all we can say to that is the secret to our success is consistency. We believe in every word that comes out of our mouths. We keep it real. We understand that our gospel music is to minister to people and encourage people to take that step of faith and if others decide to copy our style and our message that is okay.

So apart from gospel music, what other kinds of music do you listen to?

We listen to all kinds of music. We love Kci and Jojo. (Laughs). We also love “love” songs. We believe in love.

You mentioned earlier that the secret of your success lies in consistency. Do you have other secrets to share with us?

Yes, we are consistent in our message. Our message has remained the same since we started. Also, we constantly re invent ourselves. When you listen to our music, you find yourself listening to same music of faith and hope in different genres. It is very hard to place this group. We are in the process of carving a niche for ourselves in the Nigerian gospel music because of this.

I loved the video that you had for “Jigidem aka”. It is very different from a lot of Gospel videos I have seen. Who came up with the concept?

Yes, “Jigidem aka” means hold my hand. The group came up with the concept. We wanted an image that was universal so we chose to use the pregnant woman bringing forth new life which is an image of humans who sometimes go through difficulties before they bring forth their new selves. The husband is supposed to be a symbol God, holding our hands as we go through those changes to bring out what is within us. God holds our hands and leads us through birth of our new selves. We used all black because everything reflects on black. So far people like the video.

Another thing I loved about that song was that the group decided to do the song in accapela.

Yes but there are different kinds of songs in the CD. Some might not like the accapela song but might prefer to listen to the danceable beats.

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