Davido Finds His Gospel Voice With Kirk Franklin on “Hope In You”

Some collaborations look unlikely on paper and obvious the moment you hear them. “Hope In You,” the meeting of gospel’s most influential living choir director and Afrobeats‘ most recognisable voice, is one of them. Released on 30 October 2026, the song sits third on Kirk Franklin’s new double album, I Am What I Am, and it has quickly become one of its most talked-about moments.

A prayer in three languages

The song opens with Davido speaking in Yoruba, before Franklin’s choir carries it into a chorus built for a congregation: “Oh my, oh my, oh my hope is in You.” Across three and a half minutes, it moves through doubt, private struggle and spiritual vulnerability towards reassurance. Franklin’s verse admits to keeping his battles to himself, while Davido answers in a mix of English, Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin.

His prayer line, “Make I no go enter one chance,” is the kind of detail only a Lagos listener would catch first. “One chance” is the city’s slang for a scam bus ride, and here it becomes a plea for protection from the traps of life. Later, “Oluwa ti gbe mi leke” (“God has lifted me up”) lands as testimony rather than boast. It is Davido at his most unguarded, and it suits him.

Taking it to the block

Davido first previewed his verse at Franklin’s album listening session in Atlanta on 12 October. Days after release, the pair took the song outdoors for From The Block, the performance series filmed on residential streets rather than in studios. Backed by the Renaissance Orchestra, with strings, horns and a vintage microphone in front of a clapboard house, Franklin and Davido turned the track into something closer to a Sunday service than a music video. The clip has drawn hundreds of thousands of likes in its first week.

Why it matters

Gospel has always been part of Afrobeats’ DNA. Many of the genre’s biggest names, Davido included, grew up singing in church, and the call-and-response of Nigerian worship echoes through pop hooks across the continent. What “Hope In You” does is make that connection explicit, on the album of an artist whose fusion of gospel, hip-hop and R&B changed American church music in the 1990s.

For Davido, it is also a smart widening of his world. He has already proven himself on the biggest pop and Afrobeats stages. Here, he walks into a new tradition, sings in his own language, and is received as a peer. For the diaspora congregations of London, Houston and Atlanta, where Nigerian and African American worship increasingly share the same pews, the song may already feel like home.