“My family knows God is good to me. To go from number one, to top five and then back to number one,” Charlie Wilson said about his career first on Billboard charts — having two number-one hits at the same time.
Wilson, an 11-time Grammy-nominated performer who started many years ago as The Gap Band’s frontman, has forged a new path in a new era.
“I understand I’ve been blessed and the people around me understand … and keep telling me to keep my focus,” he said.
The blessings Wilson, affectionately called Uncle Charlie, refers to is reaching the number one spot on two different Billboard charts at the same time.
Both singles came from his 2017 album release “Wilson’s In It To Win It.”
The “I’m Blessed” single debuted at number one on Billboard’s Hot Gospel chart in 2017 and remained in the top five for 45 weeks straight before regaining the number one position, setting a career record, because Charlie’s current single “Chill” was also number one at the time on Billboard’s Adult R&B chart.
“It’s the first gospel single that we’ve pushed,” Wilson said.
He said he always had a gospel song on his albums to thank God for his blessings, but it is the first time his label released it as a single.
“When it debuted it went right to number one … this has never happened,” he said. “I’m working on a gospel project now. It has no name yet, but I’ve got two records.”
Wilson is not new to blessings from God: he’s overcome prostate cancer and has been drug-free and sober for 22 years.
He expresses that only God can take away cancer and a drug and alcohol addiction.
“God is trying to say ‘I got you up here … I gave you a platform … now use it for the good,” said Wilson, who received the BET Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. “I think a lot of people know that God has blessed them too. Many of us know God is there and is blessing us … so they’re giving Him some praise.”
Wilson said the increasing number of hip-hop and R&B artists releasing gospel projects, such as Snoop Dogg’s “Bible of Love,” that “they’re giving Him all the glory.”
That is what Charlie has been doing since day one.
Every time I’ve interviewed him from back in The Gap Band days and throughout his solo career, he has talked about how God has blessed him.
That is why to this day he is still a very active iconic music figure that is still releasing number one hits.
Eunice Moseley’s syndicated column, The Pulse of Entertainment, has an estimated weekly readership of over 1/4 million.
