BIGSONG:
Maranda Curtis (born August 4, 1979) is an American gospel singer and praise and worship leader formerly with The Potter’s House Church, Dallas. Her music has garnered her several nominations from the Stellar Awards and the Dove Awards. She was awarded in the 2020 BMI Trailblazers of Gospel Awards with “Nobody Like You Lord” being one the top 20 most performed Gospel songs in the United States. Maranda Curtis was born on August 4, 1979, in Miami as the fourth of seven children of pastor W. S. Curtis and Darlene Curtis, both former R&B singers.Before she began working professionally making gospel and praise and worship music, she grew up listening to R&B and jazz. She began singing at an early age, learning to harmonize from sitting in on her parents’ rehearsals. Curtis is a former worship leader at The Potter’s House in Dallas, which is “one of the most influential churches” in the United States. In 2012, she released her first single, “Don’t Take Your Love Away”. Curtis’s first extended play (EP), The Maranda Experience, Vol. 1, debuted atop the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart dated August 26, 2017. Curtis has explained that the title came from a desire of “making my private worship public” by “sharing my experience—the ‘Maranda experience’—with others”.She learned this desire of “responsible worship”, she said, from a visit to South Africa where she taught congregants who “would worship for three and a half hours. I was so convicted. I repented. A burning desire intensified inside of me to never be guilty of withholding my worship.” The singer Fantasia commended The Maranda Experience, calling it “true worship”. A live-in-concert version of the EP, Open Heaven: The Maranda Experience Live, was released the following year, as was the associated single “Nobody Like You Lord”. Recorded in Delaware, the live album contains “jazz, traditional and churchy ballads … all the sounds I grew up singing”, as Curtis said. Open Heaven debuted as a Billboard number-one gospel album on May 12, 2018, and stayed on the chart for 35 weeks; “Nobody Like You Lord” debuted on the Hot Gospel Songs chart at No. 20, eventually reaching the fifth place.Later in 2018, Curtis released a Christmas music EP, Maranda Presents a Holy Christmas, which BroadwayWorld called “extraordinary in its musical arrangements” with “the expected goosebump-raising vocals delivered by Curtis”.It reached No. 9 on the Top Gospel Albums chart. At the 34th Annual Stellar Awards, for gospel music of 2018–19, Curtis was nominated for seven Stellars—including Artist of the Year, Song of the Year (“Nobody Like You Lord”), and CD of the Year (Open Heaven)—but she won none. Curtis’ newest project, Die To Live (2022), is a half live, half studio album inspired by and written for the grieving process Curtis experienced after the passing of her mother, Darlene.
