Pastor Mike Jr.

Pastor Mike Jr. fuses contemporary R&B and hip-hop elements into his songwriting while also ministering beside conventional church ensembles, projecting a commanding vocal presence across his wide-ranging modern gospel output. His first solo project, the 2019 live set Live Free, ascended to the summit of the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart. The Stellar Award-winning follow-up I Got It: Single's Ministry, Vol. 1 arrived in 2021 and included the gospel airplay number one "I Got It," after which he issued the EPs Winning and I Got Away plus the album Impossible.

Born to Pastor Michael D. McClure, Sr., he grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and serves as head of Rock City Church in Forestdale, Alabama. His initial solo single, "B!g," surfaced in the middle of 2019 on the Black Smoke label and climbed into the Top Three of Billboard's Hot Gospel Songs and Gospel Airplay tallies, the latter of which it led for ten weeks. The full-length Live Free followed in September 2019, claiming the top gospel albums position that October and also entering the Independent Albums Top 20. A bonus cut from his next release, August 2021's I Got It: Single's Ministry, Vol. 1, yielded another Top Three gospel single and a number one gospel airplay hit in "I Got It." Within less than a year he collected six Stellar Awards, among them Album of the Year and Artist of the Year. The 2022 EP Winning preceded the 2023 LP Impossible, which showcased Tamela Mann among its guests, while the EP I Got Away appeared in 2024.