Micah Stampley may be the most gifted Gospel artist you’ve never heard. That, however, is about to change, and in dramatic fashion. Having spent almost his entire thirty-some years on Earth pursuing the goal and dream of carrying his immense musical gifts as far and wide as he could, Micah has arrived at that life juncture with the release of his stunning debut album, The Songbook of Micah. Born a child of prodigious musical gifts, Micah has been exercising his talents in capacities normally reserved for well-trained, seasoned adult musicians and musical directors since he was a little boy leading the choir in his father’s church in small-town Louisiana. With a multi-octave voice of literally staggering power and sensitivity, and a fluent writer’s hand with both words and music, he has moved from near-total obscurity to one of Gospel’s most talked-about new artists in less than a year’s time.

Songbook, with all but two songs written or co-written by Micah, is a dramatic compendium of styles, ranging from cool R&B, to hot, funky hip-hop, traditional-flavored Gospel, and gorgeous pop balladry.

“Sing” is a rousing anthem of praise that uncannily combines a driving R&B/rock groove with strong shades of both traditional choral Gospel and an classical-tinged refrain. “War Cry” is an equally high-energy shout of acknowledgement of the omniscient power of the Almighty, while the powerful ballad, “We Need the Glory,” prompts a soul-stirring vocal from Micah, calling on the Lord for His abiding presence in every aspect of the lives of His people.

Micah was born in Los Angeles, California, but was raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where his family had moved when he was still an infant. Having come into the world with a God-given gift for singing, he joined his church choir at the age of four. His actual public debut, however, he recalls through peels of laughter, was on a live Baton Rouge children’s broadcast called the Buckskin Bill Show, playing tambourine and singing along with his mother, who was off-camera, leading him, a cappella, in an uptempo, Pentecostal hymn. However, as it’s said, from small things big things one day come, and Micah sang almost constantly before audiences and congregations from that time on. Micah’s father, Richard Stampley, was and remains a carpenter and craftsman of fine furniture and cabinetry, who also was called into the ministry in the mid-‘80s, while his mother, Delmarie, worked full-time making a home for, and taking care of, the couple’s eight children. Though never pushy, Micah’s parents realized his extraordinary talents, and were supportive and enthused about his music, transporting him to various churches around the Baton Rouge area for what had become regular featured performances when he was still only seven-to-eight years old.

From his earliest church choir days, Micah had kept a close eye on his choir director and fellow musicians, assuming almost by osmosis the art of directing, and hearing and teaching harmonies and vocal arrangements to the choir. In addition to leading musical workshops at other local churches, he was a constant and prominent presence in church musical productions and presentations around the area. By the tender age of seven Micah had acquired the skill, coupled with his amazing talent, to take the reigns as a choir director, even though he had to stand atop an offering table for the entire choir to be able to see him.

Richard Stampley’s call into the ministry of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) led him to the pastorate of a church in a small Louisiana town called Natchitoches, a little over three hours to the north of Baton Rouge, not far from Shreveport, where Micah and several of his siblings finished high school. Rev. Stampley resigned that position after nine years, forming his own church four years later, while Micah and his bother Nathaniel, two years his elder, and his equally gifted musical partner, chose to return to Baton Rouge.

Micah’s father had done his best to insure that nothing but Gospel music made it anywhere into his house, or his children’s ears, though Micah still managed to hear and absorb some of the mainstream R&B and pop that was happening as well in his teenage years. With influences running from Gospel greats such as Andrae Crouch, the Clark Sisters, the Winans, and the Hawkins Family, to mainstream luminaries that included Billy Ocean, Michael Jackson, and Cyndi Lauper, it makes complete sense that The Songbook of Micah is a diverse, intriguing and compelling musical mix.

“I always loved the Gospel music I was raised on,” says Micah, “and anything with a choir sound immediately grabbed me, but the secular stuff really opened my ears, musically, to a whole world that was ought there that I hardly knew existed. I was hearing melodies and chord progressions that had never occurred to me before. It really spun my head around.”

Micah taught himself piano and keyboards when his father began pasturing. Needing some help on the musical side of his ministry, he bought Micah an inexpensive keyboard/synthesizer, which he soon mastered, becoming the church’s official minister of music at age 13. In partnership with his brother Nathaniel, he held that position until his late teens, and though he excelled at track in high school, he remained something of a loner, as his church responsibilities took the lion’s share of his time and energy.

Micah continued in his ministerial role for a while after graduation, but a growing sense of aimlessness was encroaching upon him, and when his brother was killed in a freak gun accident in 1994, he felt both devastatingly alone in life, and completely adrift in his musical career. “I was so miserable,” he recalls. “I had no idea how to get where I needed to be, to do what I wanted to do. And my brother had not only been my best friend, but my musical partner for years, and suddenly he was gone. I still had my passion for music, but I didn’t have a clue what to do with it.”

As Micah struggled to make some kind of sense out of his brother’s death, and find purpose for his own life, he received a call from Rev. Earl Johnson, a nationally known evangelist and pastor of a church just outside Pasadena, California, who had heard him sing at a conference in Natchitoches, and was so impressed with his talents that he offered Micah a position at his church in California. Micah resisted the idea initially, but ultimately concluded that a major change and break from the routines and environment in which he’d spent most of his life might be a good idea.

Micah spent much of the next three-plus years traveling the country with Rev. Johnson on his numerous crusades, and also was featured in several Gospel musicals in the LA area. However, when his father called to tell him of his plans to form a church of his own, and asked Micah to return to oversee the music department, he felt that as much as his human self wanted never to return to Louisiana, the Lord was calling him to return, and he complied.

Upon his return, he dropped in on a rehearsal of the Northwestern State University Inspirational Gospel Choir, a group in which he’d been an active, integral member since his late teens, even though he wasn’t a student at the university. Not only did he discover that the choir was still flourishing, but of far more importance, he first laid eyes on Heidi Jones, who in a little over a year would become his wife. However, the two only saw each other twice, and then only from a distance, until a year later when Heidi returned from nursing school in Shreveport. The couple was formally introduced at a choir concert in 1998, and Micah recalls that “three days after we met I knew she was the one.” Within only a matter of months, the two were married, and today have five children of their own.

In 1999, with Heidi having completed her R.N degree, the couple moved to New Orleans, where acclaimed pastor and Gospel singer, Bishop Paul Morton, hired Micah to be one of his musicians and co-choir directors at his Greater St. Stephen’s Church. In 2003, Micah accepted a position as assistant minister of music at St. Agnes Baptist Church in Houston, where he and his family remain and reside today. It was there, in late 2003, that Micah finally made the connection in the music business that had been his dream for most of his life. Micah’s director of music at St. Agnes became seriously ill only a week after his arrival, and Micah had to immediately step into his role while he recuperated. Marcus Dawson, now GM of Dexterity sounds, a good friend of Micah’s senior director, and also organist for famed writer, author, preacher, and evangelist T.D. Jakes, came to St. Agnes to cover on keyboards for Sunday services, freeing Micah to focus on singing and directing the choir.

Unknown to Micah, Bishop Jakes’ record label Dexterity Sounds /EMI, had been actively looking for a strong male vocalist. After only one Sunday of working with Micah, Marcus returned to his home, and Bishop Jakes’ Dallas church, the Potter’s House, telling the Bishop in no uncertain terms that he had found the artist they had been looking for.

Before anything further even had time to develop with Bishop Jakes and Dexterity, in January 2004, Micah was named the winner of the 2004 Stellar Award’s national Star Search, competing against thousands of other candidates spanning fourteen regions of the country. Micah’s show-stopping performance at the pre-Awards banquet the night prior to the actual Stellars broadcast became a pivotal moment in his career, starting a buzz that carried him from relative obscurity to the major leagues in a matter of months.

The week after the Stellars, Micah got a call from Marcus, asking him if he could arrange any Sunday to come to the Potter’s House and be the special musical guest. Not tarrying for a moment, Micah was in Dallas within a matter of weeks. After both Sunday morning services were finished, the eminent Bishop summoned Micah to his office and offered him a record deal on the spot. Though other major labels had also been pursuing Micah since his Stellar performance, he felt a sense of comfort and divine correctness with Dexterity, and accepted the Bishop’s offer without hesitation.

As he not only witnesses, but is the central figure, in the unfolding of hopes and prayers held for a lifetime, Micah—while admitting he often still feels himself in the midst of a whirlwind—has a decidedly focused vision of his place and purpose in the plan the Creator mapped out for him, as the Psalms says, “since before he was in his mother’s womb.”

“Drama as well as music has been a significant part of my life,” he says, “and I want to use those gifts to spread the Gospel though TV, stage and film, as well as my music. I’ve also been able to travel and perform abroad in the last few years, and it’s kindled a passion to carry the Word the all the cracks and crevices of the world where it has yet to penetrate.

“But my vision, and my wife’s as well, is to go beyond the arts as our sole means of ministry,” he continues. “We want to deal with people as well as issues. We want to address the root causes of homelessness, for instance, and at the same time actually build shelters to feed, cloth and nurture people’s bodies as well as the spirits; to offer healing, and hope, and rehabilitation. The music is key to the ministry, and it’s where I’ve invested the greatest part of my life. But great songs about Jesus are not going to fill the stomach of someone who hasn’t eaten in days. Our dream is that these songs, and this album, and whatever is to follow, will become part of a much bigger and multi-faceted ministry.

“He’s already given me the desires of my heart,” Micah concludes, “so I don’t pray for opportunities anymore. I just pray to be ready for whatever He has in store for us the days and years to come.”