Gospel music

=== Contemporary Black gospel and gospel rap (1970s–present) ===
{{Main|Urban contemporary gospel}}
 	
[[Urban contemporary gospel]] emerged in the late 1960s and early 70s with Walter Hawkins highly popular "Oh Happy Day" which is still performed worldwide in the 2000. Artists such as James Cleveland, Aretha Franklin, the Clark Sisters, [[Andraé Crouch]] and [[Richard Smallwood (musician)|Richard Smallwood]] followed crossing over musically and gaining notoriety, and this pattern would repeat itself in subsequent decades, with new artists like [[Yolanda Adams]] and [[Kirk Franklin]] making increasingly more bold forays into the secular world with their musical stylings. The current sphere of Black gospel recording artists is almost exclusively of the urban contemporary bent.

Also of note is the rise of [[Christian hip hop|Christian (or gospel) rap/hip-hop]], which has gained increasing popularity since the days of the [[Gospel Gangstaz]] and [[The Cross Movement]]. Often considered a subgenre of urban contemporary gospel, Christian rap has become dominated in present times by artists from [[Reach Records]], who have seen perhaps the most commercial success of any artists in the gospel genre; [[Lecrae]] (the label's founder and preeminent artist) has charted in the top 10 of on the [[Billboard 200]] three times, with his 2014 album [[Anomaly (Lecrae album)|"Anomaly"]] debuting at No. 1.