21/5/2025
Award winning singer and songwriter Seyi Shay has said that she stopped attending her former church due to its rigid stance on worship music, which allowed only hymns and songs based strictly on scripture while rejecting modern gospel music.
In a post on Instagram, the artist criticized the church leaders’ insistence, stating it was one of the main reasons for her departure.
She further argued that many traditional hymns were written by slave owners who forced enslaved people to sing them while being tortured.
Seyi Shay
She wrote: “One leader like dat at my former church said something like “we need to stop singing all these new age gospel songs in praise and worship and go back to singing hymns and only songs that are direct scripture…” guess what, I stopped going to that church. PERIODT. Because I don’t know how or why you would feel blessed and happy by singing some of the songs that slave owners wrote and forced them to sing and pass down through generations while beating and torturing your ancestors… makes no sense. Do your research! Ignorance is NOT Godly !!!”.
Clarifying her stance, she added, “Not all hymns were written by slave owners ooo! But a lot of them were, In some cases, you’re better off making your own praise and worship songs/hymns (based on scripture if you prefer)”.you