CeCe Winans Is Billboard’s Top Gospel Artist of 2024
Written by djfrosty on December 13, 2024
Gospel music icon CeCe Winans reigns as Billboard’s 2024 year-end top gospel artist.
Winans repeats as the leading woman from 2023 and moves up from No. 3 on the overall tally. Ye (formerly known as Kanye West), the leading artist for the past three years, shuffles to No. 3 and rules as the top male.
In the duo/group category, Maverick City Music is tops and No. 2 amongst all artists. The No. 1 new gospel act in the year-end tally is Victor Thompson.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2024 Year-End Charts
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Oct. 28, 2023, through Oct. 19, 2024. The rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology details, and the October-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.
Winans, who hails from Detroit and now resides in Brentwood, Tenn., is represented twice in the year-end top 10 gospel albums of 2024. At No. 3 is Believe For It: A Live Worship Experience, which led for seven frames on the weekly Top Gospel Albums chart starting in March 2021, but has remained in the weekly top five throughout all of 2024. More Than This is the No. 6 set on the Top Gospel Albums 2024 rundown.
That set entered at the Top Gospel Albums summit in May, becoming Winans’ 10th No. 1. Her run started in 1989 when CeCe and her brother Bebe Winans scored their first of two chart-toppers as a team when Heaven hit No. 1. The siblings’ other leader as a duo is Different Lifestyles (1991).
On the streaming, airplay and sales based Hot Gospel Songs survey Winans banked her third No. 1 when “That’s My King” began a length run atop the list in May. It spent 24 weeks atop the chart during the eligibility period. “That’s My King” is the No. 3 title of the leading Hot Gospel Songs of the year.
Billboard’s top gospel duo/group of 2024, and No. 2 among all acts is the Atlanta-based worship collective Maverick City Music. The popular outfit matches its rankings from 2022 and 2023.
Also, the year-end No. 1 title on Hot Gospel Songs is “Jireh,” Maverick City Music’s collaboration with Christian music collective Elevation Worship, along with Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine. The song debuted at No. 1 in April 2021 and spent the entire 2024 eligibility period locked in the weekly top three on Hot Gospel Songs.
Maverick City Music’s “In the Room,” with Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine and featuring Tasha Cobbs Leonard, is the No. 3 Hot Gospel Songs track of the year. “In the Room,” reached a high of No. 2 in October 2023, and has stayed in the top 3 ever since.
Maverick City Music’s third of three songs in the year-end top 10 is “God Problems,” a collaboration with Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine, which is the No. 6 Hot Gospel Songs title of ‘24.
Maverick City Music finished 2023 with the release of The Maverick Way Complete: Complete Vol. 2 with Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine. It arrived atop the weekly Top Gospel Albums list dated Nov. 11, 2023 (which places it within the 2024 chart year). It held through all of the 2024 chart year at Nos. 1 or 2. The set is No. 2 on the Top Gospel Albums recap for the year.
Old Church Basement, Maverick City Music’s collaborative project with Christian act Elevation Worship, ranks as the year’s No. 4 title on Top Gospel Albums. Basement, which opened at No. 1 on Top Gospel Albums in May 2021 and spent 17 frames at the summit, spent all of the 2024 chart year in the top 10.
The leading male gospel act of 2024 is Ye, mainly on the durability of his Donda and Jesus is King LPs. Donda ranks at No. 1 on the year-end Top Gospel Albums tally, and Jesus is King is No. 5.
Donda stormed atop Top Gospel Albums, plus the all-genre Billboard 200 as well as Top Christian Albums in September 2021 and been a consistent chart presence since. Donda has ruled Top Gospel Albums for a staggering count of over 140 frames, more than any other set since the survey lunched in 1983.
Ye’s 2019 LP, Jesus is King, is the second-longest running No. 1 title with more than 65 weeks in the penthouse.
The top new gospel artist of 2024 is Nigerian born Victor Thompson. He’s No. 13 among all acts.
Thompson’s “This Year (Blessings),” with Gunna and featuring Thompson’s brother and duo partner Ehis “D” Greatest, topped the weekly Hot Gospel Songs chart on Oct. 28, 2023 (the first week of the 2024 chart year).
“This Year” is the No. 5 Hot Gospel Songs title for 2024. It’s noteworthy that the song, originally released in January 2023, received a boost when rapper Gunna joined for a remix of the track that October.
The title spent five weeks at No. 1 and is Thompson’s lone chart entry to date.