Gospel Highlights

"Passionate Praise" is one way to describe the inspiring, contemporary gospel grooves of Tampa, Florida’s rising gospel star, Toni Rackard. For the last dozen years, she’s quietly built a following on the Florida music scene and even toured Europe with the renowned Harlem Gospel Choir. As her first national radio single “You Pulled Me Through” (a sizzling duet with Marvin Winans Jr.) is gaining momentum at gospel radio stations around the country, buzz is now building for the release of Rackard’s forthcoming debut CD Unconditional Love  (Beyond The Veil Records).

The collaboration with gospel royalty Marvin Winans Jr. came by chance. “We were at the Good Luck Café in Tampa and Marvin was there. Marcus Turner [Behind the Veil’s Promotions Director] thought it would be nice to have Marvin on the CD. So we talked to him and he agreed to do a song with me.”


Rackard’s producer Lewis T. Bryant Jr. (who has collaborated with R&B veteran Freddie Jackson) then went to work on what became “You Pulled Me Through.” The mid-tempo tune opens to the familiar echo of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” before transforming into an inspiring song about God’s ability to pull mankind through life’s trials and tribulations. “You don’t have to be a in a box because you’re saved,” Rackard says of the fresh urban sound of the song. “We are to have fun and rejoice but also spread the importance of intimacy with God.” Visit www.tonirackard.com for more information. Rackard is the praise and worship leader at Jesus People Family Worship Center in Tampa, FL.