Martha Munizzi has become one of the driving forces in gospel music for the last few years, and she has a Stellar awards and Billboard chart-topping songs to prove it. I recently spoke with this multi-talented artist by telephone and is happy to share it with you right here on our website.

Martha, how are you doing today?

I am blessed, thank you.

I wanted to do this interview with you for a while, and we’re just getting around to it and I’m grateful and happy!

Thank you, I’m glad that we’re able to do it fianlly!

How long have you been singing?

I’ve been singing since I was about 8 year’s old and I grew up in a singing family, my parents were ministers. My mom taught us all how to sing, my sisters and I, and I’ve just been singing in churches and helping in youth groups, choirs, worship teams and I’ve been a music director for many years, so it’s been a part of my life for a long time.

Where are you from?

I am from Orlando Florida, my husband and I and our three children. We live right here in Orlando.

How did you get started as far as writing? There’s no doubt you are a great songwriter.

Thank you very much! I love writing. When I was a teenager I tried my hand at it, and never thought of myself as a songwriter. I remember as a teenager we had a little band that would travel called Testament, and we would sing a lot of cover songs, so we said, “let’s try to write our own songs” and then writing became something that I really like to do. As I got older, I started writing more praise & worship type songs. Over the years I cultivated that gift and now consider myself a songwriter.

When did you get that big break as far as your songwriting goes?

It has been one of those gradual, organic processes. Alvin Slaughter was the first person to ever record one of my songs. A song I wrote years ago called “He’s Already Provided” that I finally just recorded myself on my brand new CD after all these years, and then he recorded another of my songs called “Shout”, so those songs were getting heard and he was singing them in concerts, and “Shout” just took off. From then on there were “The Best Is Yet To Come”, Say The Name”, “Because of Who You Are”…they became anthem of the church, whoever would sing them, they just got picked up. The church is really the one who grabbed them and that’s where I got my big break I guess.

Well, there’s no doubt that if anyone never hears the name Martha Munizzi, close his eyes and listen to your music, and anyone never associate a face with it, they would swear that it is an African American lady singing…where did all that come from? You are awesome… you know that I’m sure!

Well I don’t know about that but I say thank God!

I’m just asking this question out of curiosity now…did you listen to a lot of African- American singers and; were you really connected to black music per se or is it just a natural gift?

I grew up singing southern gospel music and they do not have all the acrobats in their voices and all the movements. They can but they don’t but it still has a lot of passion. When I was a teenager I was introduced to Andrae Crouch by my husband. He listens to gospel music constantly and really introduced me to a whole different sound, and I thought to myself, I have never heard anything like this! The older I got, the more I was drawn to the music even though I was very well versed in CCM and appreciated that. It was a big part of my growing up years, but when I heard CeCe Winans, my life was totally changed! And as I got into my twenties and I heard some of those great artists like Fred, Kurt, Andrae, I thought to myself, this is who I live, this is what I aspire to sound like, and what I feel is in me. When I close my eyes and thought what I’d like to become, this was it. As I began to write songs, the church we attended was mostly African-Americans., and those are the songs that I teach to the choir… John P. Kee, Ricky Grundy, Kurt Carr, all of these great artists. It seems that’s where my music fits the most and I love it…very natural for me.

What was it like when you won the Stellar Awards?

It was really amazing; when I get asked this question; my answer is always the same. I felt at the time as I walked across that stage, I heard the Holy Spirit say; remember that this is my moment to make a statement, this was not a career moment, it was really a God moment for Him to say I’m unifying you, it was the statement I feel that God was making to all of us as believers. It wasn’t about race, color or any of that at all.

Finally Martha, Where do you see yourself in let’s say 5 to 10 years, will you continue to record and will you move on to greater things?

I definitely see myself writing, recording and doing whatever God has called me to do in this ministry to glorify Him. I really believe that God is going to do some great things through our ministry. There are still much more He has in store for us.