How Meeting His Biological Father Inspired Kirk Franklin’s Recent Album
By Movieguide® Contributor
Nineteen-time Grammy award-winning artist Kirk Franklin recently met his biological father for the first time and opened up about how this encounter inspired his new album “Father’s Day.”
“It was a cosmic collision where in the middle of some random people, at a funeral, a conversation started happening between individuals,” he told Fox & Friends of meeting his father.
“In the middle of this experience, I was working on my album already, and I happened to have a young man that I just hired, an incredible videographer,” Franklin continued. “He was capturing the making of the album, so when this happened, I just used that energy to continue the process of the experience I was going through which was finding out who I thought was my father is not really my father.”
While a painful experience for the musician, Franklin explained that he wanted to take that hurt and use it for good.
“I was really very intentional about realizing that everybody wouldn’t be able to empathize or that I didn’t want to make an introverted project that was more my feelings, my emotions and then wanting people publicly to embrace it,” he expressed. “I had to try to find this balance.”
In conjunction with the album, Franklin released a documentary about his story also called FATHER’S DAY.
“Finding strength forward in faith, Franklin has written and produced FATHER’S DAY, bringing hope and encouraging growth building up one’s personal relationship with God. ‘Father’s Day’ marks Franklin’s first new solo album since the 2019 release of his GRAMMY-winning solo album LONG LIVE LOVE,” a synopsis of the documentary reads.
“I hope this album is a stripped-down, honest conversation about the difficulty of the life journey and how life can be messy, nuanced, and a matter of trial and error even for those who subscribe to faith,” Franklin said. “But it’s all wrapped in a bow of love, and that love doesn’t always make sense, but is always constant.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
Kirk Franklin’s newest project dives into the joys and trials of fatherhood as he meets his biological father for the first time and reconnects with his estranged son.
“This is the first time I’ve had a behind-the-scenes videographer capturing this content for the making of a project,” Franklin told PEOPLE about his thirteenth album. “I recorded the first song in March. Then in April, everything shifted and became something I could have never planned for.”
The album and its companion documentary, both titled “Father’s Day,” capture the life-changing events that Franklin experienced as he was reunited with his biological father and his estranged son.
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