Trinidad and Tobago gospel song reaches 1 billion views — Sherwin Gardner first black artist to achieve genre landmark

Trinidad and Tobago-born gospel singer Sherwin Gardner is celebrating 40 years in gospel this year, beginning in Arima at the age of five.

He’s also celebrating being the first black gospel artist to achieve the landmark of one billion views of a single recording, his viral single Find Me Here (Blessings Find Me).

An article in CBN News: The Christian Perspective said the song began as an affirmation at the end of 2023, which Gardner sent, along with the melody, to a Kenyan music arranger, later uploading the recorded version to Instagram and TikTok.

The song quickly became popular and his follower count skyrocketed.

Gardner re-recorded the song on New Year’s Day and asked his production company Tyscot Records to release it. Since then, it has been shared by American Grammy Award-winning producer Teddy Riley, R&B singer Alicia Keys, rapper Eve Jeffers, Destiny’s Child’s Michelle Williams, gospel artist Yolanda Adams, and comedian-turned-pastor Kel Mitchell, according to the article.

Speaking to Newsday via WhatsApp, Gardner, who is the worship leader at Bahamas Harvest Church in Nassau, said the song was distributed by ADA Warner, the independent distribution and label services arm of Warner Music Group.

“In their system, they’re able to reach out to platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc, and all the streaming platforms so they get all the numbers from them. For example, on my page you may see ten million views, but there are some people across the world who took the song, shared it, and on their page they have 20 million views, 30 million views, 100 million views.
"So the system calculates all those views, even the ones I can’t see from countries that are blocked, and then they would be able to give the labels all the information.”

He said the song was released on January 10 and was at 1.7 billion views as of March 27. It was being seen worldwide.

“The biggest market is Brazil, which just passed the US for the highest numbers, views, and shares and are dominating on TikTok and Instagram as well.

"After that it’s the US, South Africa, the African continent on a whole, there’s a lot of numbers coming in from there; and the Caribbean.

"A lot of celebrities have shared it who have major numbers on their platform and now those are the cause for the song growing and growing.”

Gardner comes from a family of evangelists, as his mother, the Rev Merle Gardner, is a pastor, his uncle, Kennedy Patterson, is a gospel artist, and his grandfather, Ivan Patterson, was a bishop in the New Testament Church.

He began singing in churches at just five, and his debut album, Power in the Name, was released when he was 17. He said his journey has been a great one.

“I’ve had success before on the Billboard charts and things like that. I’m signed to Tyscot Records, who is tied to ADA Warner.
"I’ve never stopped, I’ve always been doing gospel, always been doing music.
"The only thing is I’ve been more focused on church for the last couple years, but I’ve brought out music and had songs that are still doing very well. This is the biggest success ever, to be written in the history of music and gospel music and Caribbean gospel music. It’s exceedingly a great thing.”

The 45-year-old said he would celebrate the anniversary of the beginning of his journey at Faith Assembly International in Arouca on June 1.

He moved to the Bahamas from TT in 2019, just after he was signed to Tyscot Records.

“It was for ease of travel at first, because I was supposed to be moving to the US, but I realised I didn’t want to move there. I wanted to stay in the Caribbean, because I believe in development and I believe in motivation and I believe that I didn’t need to physically be there to accomplish what I’m accomplishing now.
"So that leap of faith is what people are seeing visible now. I said I wanted to be in the Caribbean so I can have young boys who have a dream and a goal see that your position is not what makes the difference; being in the US is not what makes the difference.
"What makes the difference is your relationship with Christ, staying focused, not giving up and fighting towards being able whatever you want to accomplish in ministry.”

Gardner said for him, while the milestone was an important one, it was never about the numbers.

“The fact or the joy of this is to know that a billion people in the world hear a message and an affirmation of Christ. That is the main thing. Because when people try to find you, then they find your life and then they realise, ‘Oh he’s not just an artist, he’s a Christian artist or a gospel artist.’ That is what is significant most of all.”

He’s working on another album and will be travelling to promote it.

Gardner said he always promoted being from TT and the Caribbean and would continue to do so.

“We’ve even got requests from some countries to use the song for their Olympic team, and as a Trini I was like, ‘No, no, no,’ we have to deal with Trinidad first before we could say yes to anywhere else.

“I’d love to say thank you to TT in general, because I feel the love from home. Even though I’m not physically there, I can feel the love and I could feel the appreciation, especially from the artists, because one of the things I do, when I talk, when I speak, when I represent, is to make sure people know where I’m from.

“I’m from the islands, I’m from TT, I live in the Bahamas.
"And there’s not just me, there’s a heap of us who declare Jesus through Caribbean music, and I think this is really significant as well.”