Born in St Thomas, Jamaica but raised in Antigua, Johnmark Wiggan has returned to the land of reggae with a message of redemption and encouragement in his recently released single ‘Work’.

The 27-year-old gospel artiste says he is also involved in full time ministry as the praise and worship and young adult leader at the Go For God Family Church.

Wiggan told OBSERVER ONLINE that since becoming a Christian he has been led by God to produce gospel music with influences of reggae and dancehall, Christian contemporary music and most recently soca, but all with the goal of returning music—which he says has since been perverted— back to its former function of giving God glory.

Here are seven questions with up-and-coming gospel artiste Johnmark Wiggan:

1. Who is Johnmark Wiggan as an artiste?

I am a very tranquil and cool energy when I am off stage, but on stage I bring the energy, I bring the worship. My music is always about God and I love uplifting people so when I come off stage they should feel energised to go another day or week in the faith. I try my best to maintain musical excellence, objectively speaking Christians should be able to call my name among excellent music and musicians when they are thinking about Christian music.

2. When did you get into music?

I got into music around 2015/2016. Prior to that I had started some secular gigging in the hotel space just before I got saved. When I got saved I transitioned with the understanding that God wanted my gifts and my talents for His exclusive use and so all of my music has been geared towards glorifying him and ensuring that people are blessed in that process.

3. What has the reception to your music been like?

I started this journey in Antigua, and it being a very small island I joined a competition called Emerge so the wider Christian community that is in touch with media in any way would have known that the competition was going on and would have followed it so some traction came from the competition itself. So when I released my first few singles the reception was good because I had gotten love from the people coming out of the competition. That’s why I worked with Sherwin Gardner— a gospel artiste from Trinidad and Tobago— he was the first person to produce a track for me.

4. Are you now trying to break into the Jamaican market?

No, I don’t feel so. I came to Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts to study five or six years ago, I was doing Music Education and I graduated last November but while undergoing my tenure at the school I was still putting out music so I guess it’s from doing that, word got around and I got from one small stage to the next and so the traction has built over the years. It has consistently grown while I was going to school and I find that God has been extremely faithful with that type of progress because to come from a rural area in St Thomas and then grow up in Antigua and deciding to do music, then coming to Jamaica and I find that I am on flyers so frequently it is amazing to me.

5. Where do you hope a career in music will take you?

I believe that I have been given the mandate of redemption; to redeem people, time, art, influence and redeem the Kingdom overall. So everything about what I do the intent is to show you what it was designed for in the first place. Like with music, the fact is that every genre was not particularly created by any man in a lab but everything that was created, was created by God for Him, it’s just that we have perverted it, idolised it and took it for our own pleasures so with every genre, all of it can be used to glorify God so I want to build enough influence that when you hear me you know what the original intent is and subscribe to that.

6. Tell us about ‘Work’.

I had always wanted to do a soca song. When I came to Jamaica every now and again when I had an event to do I would put one or two soca songs in the set to express a sense of uniqueness. ‘Work’ is a transition— because I was supposed to go back to Antigua to teach since they sent me to Jamaica on a scholarship but if I decided not to return then that turns into a cash value loan— and that transition was very difficult because God was saying stay here and do pastoral training and lead in music ministry, while working on my album, and at the same time, my different family dynamics were experiencing turmoil and all of it was caving in on me. One day I was driving and I was like ‘what is this God? It doesn’t make no sense’. And I heard him respond ‘If you could solve all your problems, I wouldn’t have to be your God, you could be your God. What you see as problems, I see them as stages’. So all I heard was the first line of the song “When I see my problems, You see platforms and stages that you want to stand on and show you are amazing” and then I heard the chorus: “In my problem dem you still work, you are the remedy, you still work, in the battles Lord you still work, to give me victory you work…” So it was Him affirming to me that the situations I am going through are situations that He was already working out. That was the message I heard and I wrote the song. It is easily so far the most relatable song that I have written.

7. What is next for you?

The album launch is set for October 28, a week before that will be the listening party and media launch but on the 28th is the concert night which will take on more of a production and not a typical gospel concert.