When "Praise This" plays the opening chords of "Money," Koryn Hawthorne lifts her microphone and debuts a special version of the hit song:
When things so bad, my God's so real
I praise His name like no one will
Big love flows through all my fears
Say His name 'cause He always hears
Don't just wish, give Him your will
Ten different reasons to rely on Him
Seek and you shall find, it be giving me chills
Blessings from above rolling in like wheels
This ecclesiastic Cardi B cover, or any of the other gospel flips in "Praise This," might just become pop culture canon, rivaling iconic competition sequences like the "Drumline" tiebreaker, the "You Got Served" dance-off and, of course, the "Sister Act 2" finale. And its performers — wearing bejeweled hoodies and lug boots, and singing amid concert-level lighting and an LED wall — are proof that being a baddie and a believer are not mutually exclusive.
"'Money' should feel like a bank robbery, but we're just talking about blessings," says Tina Gordon, writer-director of the movie. Now streaming on Peacock, the Universal release zooms in on the competitive world of contemporary church praise teams, and includes real-life musicians Hawthorne, Chlöe Bailey, Jekalyn Carr and Quavo among the cast.
Gordon talks to The Times about portraying a new generation of contemporary Christians, casting Quavo as "the moral compass of the movie" and gospel flipping songs by Ari Lennox, Lil Baby and Megan Thee Stallion. This conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for length and clarity.
What excited you most about making this movie?
I love competition movies. I had been circling the idea of doing something faith-based and family-oriented, and also wanted something music-driven to revisit my "Drumline" days. There's so many great gospel competition movies already, but this subculture is very specific, with a real and vibrant community. And being African American and coming from the South, you have to go into those cultural worlds hard and come in with a strong point of view. You can't meet it at the level that it exists in reality, or people will say, "I'll just go to these churches to see these teams." It was the same on "Drumline," where you have to elevate the experience so that outsiders pay attention to the people in the world that you're conveying.
Why does the movie's church meet at an old oil factory?
I did that because, at the time, I was living in Los Angeles and attending One Church. It's a very nontraditional, welcoming, creative environment: the congregation is very eclectic, the [services are held] at the La Brea Theatre, and Pastor Touré Roberts is hip, his wife and co-pastor [Sarah Jakes Roberts] is fly. It's a different kind of church than what we've seen in movies before, but they're all over the country — Florida, South Carolina, Texas — and they meet in basements or old garages or whatever places they can afford. It's not incongruent with more traditional churches, it's just that every generation has their way of worship. I knew that if I was gonna make a gospel movie, it had to be for this generation.
To me, nothing symbolizes this generation of contemporary Christians better than these young pastors. They dress hip, they wear sneakers, they're tatted and they're more transparent, honestly, about their lives. Just from listening to their sermons and being a congregant, I wanted to translate their non-judgment and inclusivity to the movie. These young preachers know how to connect with young people of the social media generation and speak to the challenges they face. They might not have the biggest congregations in the world and might not be the most funded, but they have these vibrant communities, and these praise teams who take contemporary songs and flip them to gospel so that their younger congregants can relate to it.
In addition to original music, "Praise This" features gospel flips of hit songs. How did you decide what each praise team would sing?
The story takes place in Atlanta, where there's a megachurch beside a contemporary church beside a white church beside a Black church. So every praise team has a different personality. It's funny — reading the script, I was thinking about when the Jonas Brothers first started, when these gorgeous guys had those promise rings and all these young people — hormones coursing through their veins — were going crazy for them. So I splintered that off into the Promise Ringtones and the Prodigal Bros, and kept going from there.
My music supervisor, Derryck Thornton, and I then just pored through tons of songs, and asked teams of songwriters to flip them into gospel arrangements for each team. The initial test was with the Promise Ringtones, who are all sweet, sassy, unattainable girl power, like Destiny's Child and those girl groups that are just perfect. It was something about that "Savage" remix with Meg and Beyoncé that I thought, let's see if the songwriters can come up with something. It came back so strong that, after that, we were off and running with all the flips.
In lesser hands, these gospel flips of hits by Amerie, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B could have been flops. How did you make sure that didn't happen?
[Producer] Will Packer and [executive music producer] Harvey Mason Jr. definitely pushed and supported my belief that we should meet right at the intersection of church and the club, and the way to do that is to match the original song in tone. So since "Money" is hard, then the production and the lyrics and the vocals are also going to be hard. We didn't want to come off as the sweeter version of the song in any way. While the content of what they're singing might not be explicit, the attitude is still the same as the original. "Money" should feel like a bank robbery, but we're just talking about blessings.
Also, Sean Bankhead's choreography. He made sure the groups had that edge and polish that took it out of being a joke, and he made sure it was aspirational, but wasn't too much that it would take you out of the story. And then my production team all understood the world we were trying to convey, which is based on the amazing lighting and staging happening with real praise teams in real contemporary churches. We shot all the performances in real contemporary churches in Georgia.
The only part that was improvised on the day was the end of "Break Every Chain" — I asked Charles Jenkins, who is both a musician and a pastor and a consultant on the movie, if he had an old church stomp, like something people's grandmothers would do. We played it on the sound system from his iPhone and told the actors to Holy Ghost Dance and eventually pass out. It was two takes, a real Hail Mary that we didn't know if it would work until we were editing the movie. And it was so funny because some of our white brothers and sisters on set had no idea what was going on.
I love the scene in which Sam [played by Bailey] gospel flips songs by Ari Lennox, Lil Baby and Xscape on the spot. How did you pull that off?
We needed a turn for the team to decide to trust Sam. To make this L.A. girl feel even more like a fish out of water, all the hit songs she has to flip are from the South. All the background extras were young people from Atlanta, and I promise you that all that energy that you feel when you're watching it was in the room that day. Oh my God, it was like a gladiator arena. And every time Kountry Wayne, my favorite comic, who plays the DJ, started playing a new song, it got so loud in there. Do you remember that one guy who had his arms around that girl? I wanted to move him, but he whispered to me, "Please don't move me, I'm gonna ask her out." I don't know what happened to them, but I hope it worked out!
Chlöe flipped so many of those songs herself, and worked with Harvey on vocal arrangements so her voice on every song reflected Sam's arc at each moment. I know, for some people, she's a surprising choice, but that's because she pushes boundaries and she is so bold onstage. When I met her privately, she was very reserved and vulnerable and thoughtful, and I loved that duality. And she's so smart. She knows what it's like to want something so bad and put that hunger into Sam. You see her hyping herself up with false confidence before she goes to meet Ty because she told me that's what she would do too. So no matter what kind of shard she portrays herself as Sam to be, under it, you feel that vulnerability of Chlöe, and I think that audiences will respond to it.
This movie has a lot of moving parts. What were you worried about most?
I was a little worried about Quavo. I wasn't asking him to be this boisterous rapper, the role is quieter and more nuanced. Ty is a musician who appeared to have everything, but was still seeking and searching, and, really, he's the moral compass in the movie. He ended up being brilliant, with a sensitivity and a realness in his portrayal, and he was a real favorite among the crew. I couldn't be happier with his performance, and I think it'll surprise people that it's not really the church that totally gives the message of the story, but the rapper with a heart of gold.
Tell me about those two ladies in the congregation who had the best commentary throughout the competition.
Cora and Prisilla! They're played beautifully by the amazing comics Cocoa Brown and Vanessa Fraction. Setting the movie in a contemporary space, I still felt like I was missing the OG church lady mentality. I honestly thought I was adding them for the parents watching this movie, but they resonated so much with the younger people too. It turns out that everybody has a shady auntie who talks smack in church! I didn't have the real estate to have a bunch of people in the audience, so my mind went to the two old guys in the Muppets, who say out loud everything the audience is already thinking. Like, they're never gonna get on board with Sam tying her shirt up and showing her abs.
"Praise This" was previously reported as a potential Universal franchise in the vein of "Pitch Perfect." Do you think there's an opportunity for a sequel?
We just have to wait and see what Universal thinks. But the audience reaction at screenings has been resounding, and they've been asking questions about what happens next. I'm just like, a movie is only a couple of hours, what do you want me to do?
My goal with this movie was to introduce this world, establish these characters, show their challenges and build an affinity for this team. It's hard to do more than that because you don't have the same space you do in a normal script, since the music takes up so much real estate in the movie. But the thing I have learned for myself in life is that God has a sense of humor, and everyone's faith journey is more of a winding road than a straight line. So I think that the faith journeys of these characters would be hilarious and surprising. For me, that's perfect material to keep going.
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