Reach Records’ six-time Dove award-winning artist GAWVI, is prepared to ruffle some feathers with his third full-length album, ‘Heathen’ set to release on April 10, 2020. The EDM / Hip hop artist has been known to push boundaries in music as evidenced by his two RIAA Certified Gold Records for production (“Anomaly”, Lecrae: “You Can’t Stop Me”, Andy Mineo) and as a solo artist shown in his debut album ‘We Belong’ and sophomore project ‘Panorama.’ ‘Heathen’ will be no different as GAWVI aims to push against the Christian culture in hopes to deconstruct unhealthy cultural norms.
“ ‘Heathen’ is the album I feel most confident and true to myself especially with all the confusion going on in the world,” shares GAWVI. “With this record, I wanted to say ‘hey world, I’ve been labeled as a heathen, not because I am a sinner or a bad person, but because I went against the ‘Christian culture mold’.” He continues, “Heathen actually means Ethnos in Greek, which stands for ethnicity and it also means gentiles. When it is used in the Bible, it is described as a person who was not Jewish or someone with a different cultural background. So it got me thinking, how did this word get lost in translation? And I realized, this is what happens to us as humans. At the beginning God designed us to be who we are meant to be, yet we let labels influence us and shape our identity. So I want to embrace the word ‘heathen’, and do something different with the Christian culture, and let people know that it is okay to live outside of the norm. When someone says to me ‘what you are doing is not normal’, my response is ‘thank you’.“
Focusing on his personal growth, GAWVI wants to connect with his listeners through authenticity and transparency. With Heathen, GAWVI was inspired by the letters to the Apostle Paul, and the collection of 17 songs nudge Christian listeners to examine how standards of acceptability may be limiting new voices from communicating God’s grace to a world in need of a home. On this new project, GAWVI positions himself as the voice of an outsider, the least of these … the Heathen.
The album was recorded in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and was produced by GAWVI himself. Additionally, the record Heathen features numerous collaborations including Israel Houghton, fellow labelmate Trip Lee, Aklesso, Wordsplayed, Daramola, Wxlf, Parris Chariz & Tommy Royale
