Jonathan Nelson

Jonathan Nelson, a gospel singer, minister, songwriter, and producer, gained early traction via a pair of Columbia releases in 2008 and 2010, though his third effort, the 2013 chart-topping Finish Strong, truly launched his profile. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he was steeped in church traditions from childhood, his father serving as pastor and his mother as first lady while relatives performed as musicians, paths that steered him to training at the Baltimore School for the Arts and Morgan State with an emphasis on choral work. He had already climbed to an executive post at a computer software company when the 2001 dot-com collapse wiped out nearly everything, spurring him to commit fully to music by writing and tracking material with his vocal ensemble Purpose.

The major-label bow Right Now Praise arrived in 2008 and earned a Dove nomination for New Artist of the Year; both that album and its 2010 follow-up Better Days came out on Columbia’s Integrity imprint and landed inside the Top Ten of Billboard’s gospel charts. Signing with Karen Clark-Sheard and J. Drew Sheard’s Karew label in 2013 yielded his strongest commercial showing yet when Finish Strong topped the gospel list. After a three-year hiatus he surfaced with Fearless, marking his first release on the eOne-affiliated Light imprint. Cementing his place on the Light roster, Nelson delivered Declarations in 2018, which included a duet with CeCe Winans on the song “Because You Are.”