awesomepraise.com
A multi-national gospel concert — bringing together artists, choirs, and communities from across Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean in a single, extraordinary night of worship and praise.
About Awesome Praise
Awesome Praise is a multi-national gospel concert inspired to orchestrate God’s praise in the nations. At its core, it presents a grand platform for gospel artists, church and independent choirs to come together in a cringe-free environment to give high praise and worship to their first love.
Founded and produced by Olawale Opayinka, Awesome Praise began at the Barbican Hall in London in September 2002 and has since taken the same spirit to Washington DC, Johannesburg, and Lagos — each edition drawing artists from different nations, traditions, and generations into a single evening of extraordinary praise.
Performances include drama in both voiced and non-voiced art forms. The result is something that critics and audiences alike have struggled to reduce to a single word — except one: awesome.
Awesome Praise is a charity concert that promotes and benefits the work of 3E Foundation and other nominated local charities in each host nation.
To stage Awesome Praise in your community or nation — featuring a local mass choir drawn from all Christian denominations, indigenous worship groups, and an ensemble from Africa, America, and the Caribbean.
A night (or nights) of gospel music in its fullest expression — joyful singing, live music, dance, and drama. Every edition is different. Every city brings its own voice. Every gathering is unrepeatable.
Awesome Praise comes at your invitation. We would travel to your community or nation to stage a night that would belong entirely to you. If you feel the call — reach out.
Each edition benefits 3E Foundation — supporting actuarial education, community infrastructure, and rural development in Africa — and locally nominated charities in the host nation.
What They Said
A truly overwhelming performance of Kurt Carr’s ‘We Offer You Praise’ — fulfilling the promise of bringing musicians from such different traditions together: to make a joyful noise unto the Lord that reflected and inspired awe.
Andrew Malone — The Washington Post · 21 July 2004A night stacked with celestial fare.
London Evening StandardAwesome Praise looks to create a moment of power and realisation that we have the ability to praise God in a way that it’s just awesome.
Rev Bazil Meade — London Community Gospel Choir“Being in HIS presence — Awesome Praise just comes out of me.”
Osmond Collins — USA
Concert History
From a debut at the Barbican in 2002 to Freedom Park in Lagos in 2011 — every Awesome Praise edition has been unique, rooted in its city, and united by the same desire to orchestrate praise that simply fills a room.
Barbican Hall — London, United Kingdom
The inaugural Awesome Praise took place in September 2002 at the Barbican Hall — one of Europe’s most prestigious concert venues. A bold, unprecedented gathering of gospel voices from multiple nations. The seed of something that would grow across continents.
The Ocean Music Venue — London, United Kingdom
A year on, Awesome Praise returned to London at The Ocean Music Venue. The artists multiplied. The reach expanded. The vision deepened: this was not a one-night event but a movement.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — Washington DC, USA · 19 July 2004 · Free Admission
On Monday 19 July 2004, Awesome Praise 3 was staged as a free concert at America’s national cultural centre — the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC. Bringing together ensembles and soloists from Africa, England, and the United States, the evening was organised by Olawale Opayinka to celebrate the Word through myriad forms of gospel music. The Washington Post, reviewing the event, headlined its piece “Higher-Powered”: noting that rhythmic clapping and spontaneous shouts of joy — not normally heard in the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall — broke out throughout the audience, who understandably could not help themselves.
“A truly overwhelming performance of Kurt Carr’s ‘We Offer You Praise’ — fulfilling the promise of bringing musicians from such different traditions together: to make a joyful noise unto the Lord that reflected and inspired awe.”
Andrew Malone — The Washington Post, 21 July 2004
Johannesburg — South Africa
Awesome Praise came home to Africa in November 2007, staged in Johannesburg, South Africa. The concert carried the same multi-national spirit to the continent it had always aimed to serve — bringing artists from across Africa and beyond to praise together on African soil.
Freedom Park — Lagos, Nigeria · Friday, 11 November 2011
The most ambitious Awesome Praise to date. Freedom Park, Lagos — an outdoor stage under the night sky, national flags from across Africa, the Healing Streams of God choir in purple filling the wings, and a packed audience seated in the warm Lagos evening. Covered by the Nigerian press as one of the most extraordinary evenings Freedom Park had hosted. An evening Lagos did not forget.
ICE Nnamdi Nweke performed live on canvas throughout the concert — and when he raised the painting at the end, the audience was stunned: in under seven minutes, entirely in paint, he had produced the Passion of Christ. A standing ovation for an act of uncommon praise.
Freedom Park, Lagos — 11 November 2011. The Healing Streams of God choir (250 voices, in purple) flanking the stage. National flags of Nigeria, Ghana, and other African nations behind the performers. The audience filling every seat under the open Lagos night. Awesome Praise had come home.
Nigerian Press Coverage
Nigerian newspaper Entertainment cover feature — “Awesome Praise in honour of womenfolk”
Full review — the choir, the artists, the live painting, the message. Continued from page 37.
Featured Artists
Awesome Praise has brought together some of the most celebrated gospel voices from Nigeria, Ghana, Poland, the UK, and the USA. Each edition creates its own ensemble from the best of the host nation and the international circuit. Below is a selection of artists who have graced the Awesome Praise stage across the series.
Signature Ensembles
Healing Streams of God — Daystar Choir (250 voices, Nigeria)
The 250-voice Daystar Choir from Nigeria performed at the Lagos edition and represents the heart of what Awesome Praise is about — mass voices united in worship. Every host city is invited to bring its own choirs, across all Christian denominations, to form the local sound of that evening.
Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria
Ghana
Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria
Poland / UK
South Africa / UK
UK
Nigeria
Nigeria / UK
And many more — every city adds its own voice
14
Makaya Plantation
The same spirit that conceived Awesome Praise has found expression in the studio. Olawale Opayinka has produced in excess of 14 original songs under the recording artist name Makaya Plantation — gospel and praise music drawn from the same wells of faith, African heritage, and joyful noise that the concerts celebrate.
Makaya Plantation is the intimate, creative expression of the conviction that underlies everything — that praise, in whatever form it takes, is worth doing properly. Keep it simple. Keep it honest. Make it awesome.
The music and the mission share the same soul. Awesome Praise fills arenas. Makaya Plantation fills the space between them.
14+ original compositions
Gospel & praise
African heritage
Studio production
Invite Awesome Praise
Awesome Praise comes at your invitation. We would travel to your community or nation to stage a night — or nights — of praise and worship that would belong entirely to you and your people.
Each edition features a local mass choir drawn from all the Christian denominations in your community, indigenous worship groups and artists, and our international ensemble from Africa, America, and the Caribbean.
The answer to “when is Awesome Praise coming?” has always been the same: when you invite us.
All Christian denominations in your city, gathered under one roof.
Artists from Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean joining your city’s voice.
Voiced and non-voiced drama woven through the evening’s programme.
Each edition benefits 3E Foundation and a locally nominated charity.
Tell us your city, your vision, and how you’d like to be involved.
Founding & International Partners
Founding Partner
Awesome Praise was conceived as an expression of 3E Foundation’s wider mission — education, empowerment, and community development across Africa. The Foundation is the principal beneficiary of Awesome Praise concerts worldwide.
3efoundation.org →Founding Partner
The Church Mission Society (CMS-UK) has been a founding partner of Awesome Praise, bringing institutional support and a global missionary network to the concert’s reach and purpose.
cms-uk.org →International Partner — South Africa
International partner for the Johannesburg edition, supporting the staging of Awesome Praise on South African soil and connecting the concert to the broader African praise and worship movement.
rfc.org.za →