J Moss

(?)—

Gospel singer and music producer

One of the most dynamic young gospel musicians and producers to emerge in the 1990s, J Moss has brought updated sounds to the genre, merging pop and hip-hop beats with the spiritual message of the music. As a partner in PAJAM, a music production company in Detroit, Moss has been instrumental in bringing the new sounds of gospel to a sophisticated young audience.

Born James Moss in Detroit, Michigan, he was surrounded by music. He often toured with his father, gospel star Bill Moss, Sr., and the elder Moss's group, Bill Moss and the Celestials. His aunt, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, was an influential gospel singer and choral director; her daughters, the Clark Sisters, formed a gospel quartet with whom the young Moss also sometimes toured. By his early teens, Moss had formed a duo with his brother, Bill, Jr., and the pair toured the Midwest as the Moss Brothers. The duo performed for seven years, and recorded two albums for major labels. During this time, Moss developed his keyboard skills, playing partly by ear and also receiving formal lessons. With the encouragement of his father, he began writing songs. He also picked up considerable knowledge about the business side of the music industry.

When Bill, Jr., left to attend college, Moss had to make some decisions about his own future. "When I was a kid, I didn't think anything about singing," he commented on the Inside J Moss Web site. "I just wanted to be out playing with my friends. But somewhere in high school I really began feeling a tugging from God telling me music was my calling in life." Moss attended Michigan State University, but left after two years because "I'd gotten to a place where all I wanted to do was write and play and sing music, all the time." Having co-produced a musical variety show at the university, which he discovered he was good at and enjoyed doing, Moss began to see a future for himself in which he could combine performance with production work.

It took time for Moss to realize this dream. Soon after leaving college, he recorded two albums for a small label in Detroit, but these did not generate any significant publicity. While recording, though, he met his future business partners, Paul Allen and Walter Kearney. Together they formed PAJAM, a writing and production company. To pay his rent Moss took various odd jobs, and then got work with a computer programming company. It began to feel as if a career in music would remain only a dream. The boost that Moss needed came in the mid-1990s, when he was invited to join his cousins, the Clark Sisters, on tour. By this time the Clarks had become famous, and the tour brought Moss to the attention of the head of Island/Def Jam Records, who signed the young singer in 1996.

Though this event appeared to signal the beginning of Moss's solo career, things turned out differently. Island had also signed Moss's cousin, Karen Clark-Sheard, and her debut album, Finally Karen—which was also PAJAM's first production project—occupied most of the label's attention, while Moss's own solo record was not publicized. Released in 1997, Finally Karen became a smash hit, reaching #2 on the gospel charts. PAJAM had scored its first major success. Moss was now a powerful figure in the music world, but as a producer instead of as a singer.

PAJAM quickly built a reputation as one of the gospel world's most prolific and admired songwriting and production teams. PAJAM has worked with more than 50 major artists, including gospel artists Marvin Sapp, Hezekiah Walker, Trinitee 5:7, Karen Clark-Sheard, Kierra Kiki Sheard, and Ramiyah, as well as pop artists such as Kelly Price, Pattie LaBelle, and Destiny's Child.

Despite the increasing demands of his busy production schedule, Moss continued to write songs in hopes of launching himself as a performer in his own right. He and his PAJAM partner, Paul Allen, worked intensely in 2003 to write a full album's-worth of songs, which they went on to record. The album, The J Moss Project, was released in 2004 on GospoCentric Records. The process of making this album, Moss commented on Inside J Moss, was quite difficult. "Everything earthly I'd acquired," he said, "was on the line: my home, my cars, insurance for my wife and children." But as Moss emphasized, God "came through again" for him. The album took off, teaching Moss that his reliance on God was more important than material things.

Unlike many of PAJAM's edgier projects, which draw significantly on hip-hop beats, The J Moss Project is more stylistically diverse. It features a mix of songs that showcase Moss's pleasing tenor voice, supported by background choir vocals. La Tonya Taylor, reviewing the album for Christian Music Today, described it as "sometimes slick, bouncy and celebratory and other times worshipful, tender and reflective," and praised its genuineness—the album, Taylor emphasized, is not a "churchified attempt to sanctify cool." In a review for Black Gospel, Lorraine Balfour noted that The J Moss Project is "packed with explosive sound from start to finish" and that the singer's "infectious energy" never wanes. Release of the album, Balfour concluded, demonstrates to the world that Moss is not only a brilliant presence behind the scenes but also "a masterful vocalist and a true minister of music with a passion for winning souls to Christ." Chris Rizik, reviewing the album for Soul Tracks, felt that its strongest cuts are the ones that "play to PAJAM's genre-bending strength, such as the hot ‘I Wanna Be,’" which Rizik described as a dance tune that would appeal to a wide audience, and "Livin," a "funky Prince-influenced cut that display's Moss's excellent falsetto and which is perhaps the album's high point."

In 2006 Moss released his highly anticipated follow-up album, V2—The J Moss Project. Joining him on the album are several guest musicians, including Kirk Franklin, Karen Clark-Sheard, Marvin Winans, and Byron Cage.