Nigel Teles­ford

At a time when anx­i­ety, so­cial me­dia val­i­da­tion and the pres­sure to con­form are shap­ing an en­tire gen­er­a­tion, Ja­maican gospel pow­er­house Kevin Down­swell be­lieves the Caribbean des­per­ate­ly needs to re­dis­cov­er some­thing far more valu­able than pop­u­lar­i­ty—iden­ti­ty.

The in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed gospel artiste, evan­ge­list, pro­duc­er, au­thor and re­cent re­cip­i­ent of Ja­maica’s Or­der of Dis­tinc­tion says too many peo­ple have al­lowed likes, com­ments and trends to de­ter­mine their self-worth in­stead of dis­cov­er­ing who they tru­ly are.

“Your iden­ti­ty will nev­er be found on so­cial me­dia,” Down­swell told Over­time Me­dia dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view. “It will nev­er be found in the com­ment sec­tion. You have to know your iden­ti­ty be­fore you go on this ... be­cause this place will help de­fine you.”

That mes­sage lies at the heart of his lat­est sin­gle, Steady, re­leased ahead of his forth­com­ing stu­dio al­bum due lat­er this sum­mer. Built on the en­er­getic and mega-pop­u­lar WYFL rid­dim, the song blends con­tem­po­rary Ja­maican rhythms with an un­com­pro­mis­ing spir­i­tu­al mes­sage, en­cour­ag­ing lis­ten­ers to re­main ground­ed de­spite mount­ing so­cial, emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al pres­sures.

For Down­swell, how­ev­er, Steady is much more than an­oth­er song.

“I felt like I need­ed to get a mes­sage across,” he said. “I feel like peo­ple are on the edge right now in this sea­son.”

Down­swell be­lieves anx­i­ety has qui­et­ly be­come one of the defin­ing strug­gles of mod­ern so­ci­ety.

“Peo­ple are car­ry­ing so much that it feels like their knees are buck­ling be­cause of what’s go­ing on in every­body’s life.”

Then came per­haps the in­ter­view’s most mem­o­rable ob­ser­va­tion.

“If you find one per­son right now who is not anx­ious about some­thing, it must be God.”

Rather than adding to the noise, Down­swell hopes “Steady” be­comes a re­minder that peace be­gins with know­ing who you are.

“It’s go­ing to be al­right, man.” He ad­vised. “Just come back to your cen­tre. Come back to your true iden­ti­ty.”

Iron­i­cal­ly, he says the peo­ple em­brac­ing that mes­sage most en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly are the very gen­er­a­tion many fear is be­ing lost to so­cial me­dia.

“The young peo­ple are hold­ing on to the mes­sage like crazy.” He re­vealed. “Every­body is call­ing me to their school.”

Ed­u­ca­tors across Ja­maica have in­vit­ed him to speak with stu­dents prepar­ing for ex­am­i­na­tions and nav­i­gat­ing an in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal world where com­par­i­son of­ten re­places con­fi­dence.

“You were nev­er made to fit in,” he tells them and the mass­es at large. “You were nev­er made to be a copy of any­body.”

Down­swell al­so cau­tioned young peo­ple against chas­ing tem­po­rary pop­u­lar­i­ty.

“Nev­er build your life on hype be­cause hype comes and hype goes.” He ad­vised. “Build your life on some­thing that is sta­ble.”

This phi­los­o­phy al­so in­flu­enced his de­ci­sion to record Steady on the dance­hall-in­flu­enced WYFL rid­dim.

Rather than view­ing the pro­duc­tion as a de­par­ture from tra­di­tion­al gospel mu­sic, Down­swell saw it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to car­ry an eter­nal mes­sage through a sound that to­day’s gen­er­a­tion al­ready un­der­stands.

“I don’t think of it as a gospel song,” he ex­plained. “I think of it as an ur­gent mes­sage trav­el­ling in the right ve­hi­cle.”

The strat­e­gy ap­pears to be work­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial cam­paign, “Steady” has sparked con­ver­sa­tions across church­es, schools and so­cial me­dia un­der the ral­ly­ing cry, “We no shake. We no bow. We no bend,” chal­leng­ing be­liev­ers to choose pur­pose over pop­u­lar­i­ty and call­ing over com­par­i­son.

Down­swell’s own life re­flects that con­vic­tion. De­spite re­ceiv­ing Ja­maica’s Or­der of Dis­tinc­tion, earn­ing a Doc­tor of Sa­cred Mu­sic de­gree, pub­lish­ing best­selling books and be­com­ing one of the Caribbean’s most recog­nised gospel voic­es, he in­sists that he ab­solute­ly re­fus­es to be­come com­fort­able.

“I feel like I’ve just start­ed.” He de­clared brazen­ly, and his ex­pla­na­tion for this log­ic is as sim­ple as it is pro­found.

“Yes­ter­day’s ceil­ing is to­day’s floor, that’s how I think about it and I’ve nev­er set­tled ... I’m con­stant­ly on the grind ... but al­ways grate­ful.”

Be­yond the stage, Down­swell and his wife Mar­sha have spent years men­tor­ing abused chil­dren through their Re­align­ment Ini­tia­tive, while his Down­swell Records la­bel con­tin­ues de­vel­op­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of gospel min­is­ters.

He is al­so the au­thor of two best­selling books, in­clud­ing the Ama­zon No 1 de­vo­tion­al Mid­night To Vic­to­ry, and has shared stages with glob­al gospel gi­ants in­clud­ing Don­nie Mc­Clurkin, Kirk Franklin, Tasha Cobbs and Mav­er­ick City.

Still, Down­swell says his great­est achieve­ment has lit­tle to do with awards or chart suc­cess.

“I know I’m dif­fer­ent,” he en­thused, “and I’m very con­fi­dent in be­ing dif­fer­ent. I’m not afraid to be my­self so if you call me to do a col­lab­o­ra­tion with you, you bet­ter know that I bring Je­sus in­to the room.”

As an­tic­i­pa­tion builds for his up­com­ing al­bum, Down­swell hopes “Steady” be­comes more than just its lead sin­gle. His in­ten­tion is that it in­spires and be­comes a move­ment that re­minds peo­ple through­out the Caribbean that their great­est strength is not found in pop­u­lar­i­ty, ap­plause or pub­lic opin­ion, but in re­main­ing root­ed in pur­pose.

“It’s go­ing to be al­right,” he cau­tions. “Just come back to your cen­tre. Come back to your true iden­ti­ty.”