Davido didn’t just show up to Kirk Franklin’s album listening session in Atlanta on October 12. He reportedly stepped up, performed a verse, and then folded himself into the choir like he’d been rehearsing with them for weeks.
That moment was the first public preview of ‘Hope In You,’ the pair’s new collaboration landing Friday, October 30, 2026.
The track sits on Franklin’s forthcoming album I Am What I Am, a 14 track project that mixes gospel with contemporary sounds.
For anyone who has followed Franklin’s career, that blend is nothing new. He has spent decades pulling gospel toward hip hop, R&B and pop, from the God’s Property era through his guest turn on Kanye West’s ‘Ultralight Beam.
What stands out this time is the guest list. Alongside Davido, the album features GloRilla, Jelly Roll and Tobe Nwigwe, four artists who rarely share a playlist, let alone a gospel record.
GloRilla has already worked with Franklin on ‘Rain Down On Me,’ and Jelly Roll has built much of his recent audience on songs about redemption and faith.
Tobe Nwigwe is an interesting fit too. The Houston rapper is Nigerian American, and his music often leans into his faith and family.
Putting him and Davido on the same project gives the album a West African thread that runs deeper than a single feature.
For Davido, this is a different kind of crossover. The Lagos star has spent years taking Afrobeats to stadiums and international charts, with hits like ‘Fall’ and ‘Unavailable’ finding audiences far beyond Nigeria.
A gospel collaboration with one of the genre’s most recognizable figures puts him in front of church audiences in the US who may never have streamed an Afrobeats record.
There are two ways fans are likely to read this. Afrobeats listeners may see it as Davido stretching into new territory and showing a side of himself that rarely makes it onto his own albums.
Longtime gospel fans, on the other hand, have sometimes been wary of Franklin’s secular collaborations, and a lineup this broad could reignite that familiar debate about how far gospel can bend before it stops being gospel.
Franklin has never seemed too bothered by that question. His whole catalog has been built on the idea that a choir and a club beat can coexist, and the title I Am What I Am reads almost like an answer to the critics before they even speak.
The Atlanta preview gave a small group of listeners an early taste, but most fans have only the description of Davido joining the choir to go on.
The full version arrives on October 30, and the rest of I Am What I Am, with its GloRilla, Jelly Roll and Tobe Nwigwe moments, is still waiting in the wings.
