Celebrated gospel singer Sherwin Gardner was born in Trinidad and Tobago and started his career at the age of five in Arima. This year, he is marking 40 years in the gospel sector. In addition, he’s enjoying becoming the first black gospel musician to have his viral song “Find Me Here (Blessings Find Me)” seen one billion times.
According to The Christian Perspective, Gardner emailed the melody and the song idea to a Kenyan music arranger toward the end of 2023. Gardner then posted the recorded version of the song on TikTok and Instagram.
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His fan base grew dramatically as a result of the song’s rapid popularity.
On January 1st, Gardner recorded the song again and requested that his production firm, Tyscot Records, release it. Since then, Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, rapper Eve Jeffers, R&B singer Alicia Keys, gospel performer Yolanda Adams, comedian-turned-pastor Kel Mitchell, and American Grammy Award-winning producer Teddy Riley have all shared it.
Gardner, the worship leader of Nassau’s Bahamas Harvest Church, told the press over WhatsApp that ADA Warner, Warner Music Group’s independent distribution and label services division, was responsible for distributing the song.
“In their system, they’re able to reach out to platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc, and all the streaming platforms so they get all the numbers from them. For example on my page you may see ten million views but there are some people across the world who took the song, shared it, and on their page they have 20 million views, 30 million views, 100 million views, so the system calculates all those views, even the ones I can’t see from countries that are blocked, and then they would be able to give the labels all the information.”
According to him, the song was seen 1.7 billion times as of March 27 after being published on January 10. The entire globe was watching it.
“The biggest market is Brazil, which just passed the US for the highest numbers, views, and shares and are dominating on TikTok and Instagram as well.”
He continued, “After that it’s the US, South Africa, the African continent on a whole, there’s a lot of numbers coming in from there; and the Caribbean.”
“A lot of celebrities have shared it who have major numbers on their platform and now those are the cause for the song growing and growing.”
Coming from a family of evangelists, Gardner’s grandpa, Ivan Patterson, was a bishop in the New Testament church; his uncle, Kennedy Patterson, is a gospel performer; and his mother, the Rev. Merle Gardner, is a pastor.
His first record, “Power in the Name,” was published when he was seventeen years old. He started singing in churches at the age of five. His voyage, he remarked, had been fantastic.
“I’ve had success before on the Billboard charts and things like that. I’m signed to Tyscot Records, who is tied to ADA Warner. I’ve never stopped, I’ve always been doing gospel, always been doing music. The only thing is I’ve been more focused on church for the last couple of years, but I’ve brought out music and had songs that are still doing very well. This is the biggest success ever, to be written in the history of music and gospel music and Caribbean gospel music. It’s exceedingly a great thing.”
The 45-year-old stated that on June 1 of this year, he would commemorate the anniversary of the start of his journey at Faith Assembly International in Arouca.
Not long after signing with Tyscot Records in 2019, he relocated to the Bahamas from Trinidad and Tobago.
“It was for ease of travel at first, because I was supposed to be moving to the US, but I realized I didn’t want to move there. I wanted to stay in the Caribbean because I believe in development, and I believe in motivation and I believe that I didn’t need to physically be there to accomplish what I’m accomplishing now. So that leap of faith is what people are seeing visible now.”
“I said I wanted to be in the Caribbean so I can have young boys who have a dream and a goal see that your position is not what makes the difference; being in the US is not what makes the difference. What makes the difference is your relationship with Christ, staying focused, not giving up and fighting towards being able whatever you want to accomplish in ministry.”
While the milestone was significant, according to Gardner, it was never about the statistics.
“The fact or the joy of this is to know that a billion people in the world hear a message and an affirmation of Christ. That is the main thing. Because when people try to find you, then they find your life and then they realize, ‘Oh he’s not just an artist, he’s a Christian artist or a gospel artist.’ That is what is significant most of all.” He is now recording a new album and plans to tour in support of it.
Gardner declared that he would keep promoting his Caribbean and T&T heritage.
“We’ve even got requests from some countries to use the song for their Olympic team, and as a Trini, I was like, ‘No, no, no,’ we have to deal with Trinidad first before we could say yes to anywhere else.”
He expresses gratitude towards his fans while highlighting his origin, “I’d love to say thank you to T&T in general because I feel the love from home. Even though I’m not physically there, I can feel the love and I could feel the appreciation, especially from the artists, because one of the things I do, when I talk, when I speak, when I represent, is to make sure people know where I’m from.
He concluded, “I’m from the islands, I’m from T&T, I live in the Bahamas. And there’s not just me, there’s a heap of us who declare Jesus through Caribbean music, and I think this is significant as well.”
