Great songwriters spend their lives baring their souls onto the page, hoping some sliver of truth reaches and resonates with the masses.

But for Matthew West, multiple ASCAP Christian Music Songwriter/Artist of the Year winner, American Music Award and Billboard Music Award winner and four-time GRAMMY® nominee, the masses have come to him, baring their souls and sharing their stories.

And forever changing the way he approaches the music he makes.

Produced by Pete Kipley (MercyMe, Crowder, Phil Wickam, Robert Randolph) Live Forever finds Matthew West digging deeper into the well of stories —over 40,000 true stories shared with him by people

all over the world—stories that six years and three albums later have had a profound ripple effect.

“If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that storytelling is contagious,” West says. “So many people have been made to feel that their story is insignificant, that they don’t matter, or that their story is somehow disqualified because they’ve got too many messed up parts to it, and ‘Why would it matter?’”

But West has answered that question before in Story of Your Life (2010), Into the Light (2012) and now in Live Forever. “Each story told, awakens something in people who have yet to find the courage to tell their own,” he shares. “They begin thinking, ‘If God can use that person’s story, maybe He could use mine,’ and a chain reaction begins. One story goes out and more stories come back. One by one, these songs encourage people to be the storytellers in their own lives, wherever they are, because your story can help someone else and their story can help someone else. Telling our stories reminds us that we are not alone.”

He continues, “With my last two records, I was inspired by chapters in our stories that have already been written: life in a broken home, the loss of a loved one, forgiving someone who has hurt you, the guilt of past mistakes. Many people share with me the chapters that are behind them, the ones that still haunt them, ones that haven’t found redemption yet. With Live Forever, I felt it was time to acknowledge that none of us have a perfect story. Every story has its share of broken chapters. But then ask the questions, ‘Is this it? Are we just supposed to walk wounded through the rest of our stories?’ We could spend the rest of our lives focusing on the past, or we could dare to look ahead, and choose to believe that with God we’ve been given a chance to start new, and the best of our stories have yet to be written.”

This is the direction West had in mind as he returned to that cabin in the woods of Tennessee, a songwriter’s retreat where his previous two albums were envisioned. To make a record bursting with color and life – not just the life we have here, but the life that is to come. “With so much defeat all around us, people need to know there is victory. Maybe my job in reading a lot of these desperate stories is to extract the hope. I wanted to write songs that encourage people to remember that this life is not the destination. It’s a journey to the place of our ultimate hope, Heaven. This was a very decisive record in that way.”

I was born half Baptist (the East Texas, King James carrying, pipe organ, hymnal singing, Southern, type Baptist) and half Pentecostal (the Holy Ghost, jumpin' and shoutin', hand-waving, prophecying, Southern, type Pentecostal). Later, I was born again.

The son of an insurance salesman and a social worker, fructifying in the piney woods of Texarkana, I was as muddled as the name of my town. We drove a light blue Ford Thunderbird; not the old, classic kind, but a brand  new one that had a sticker on it. The one with the electric windows and mirrors and the headlamp covers that flipped open when you turned on the headlights and an in-dash eight-track player. My dad and mom both used Aqua Net hair spray. He parted it on the right side and always carried a comb. She got permanents and had curlers that heated up every Saturday night while we all watched The Lawrence Welk Show and Hee-Haw. The eight-tracks in rotation were Elvis, Willie Nelson, Olivia Newton John, and Bill Gaither. Everything I've ever done musically can be traced back to there -- that Ford Thunderbird, those sounds, the view out of those windows, and my brother punching me in the arm on the way to Sunday morning Church. That is all metaphor and all true.

I didn't mean to write and sing songs for a living. Doesn't seem like much of a thing to get paid for. I'd guess the odds are about the same as winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning. Given my nepotistic hookup, my assumption was that I would move back home after college to sell insurance for my dad and eventually take over the family practice. Who doesn't love a good actuary table? And yet, one late October night, on an apartment balcony in Waco, Texas, just off of the Baylor University campus where I was student, a friend spun yarns that fell on me like a blanket and the course of my life was altered. He was an itinerant pastor of a rural church just outside of town. "So, I get a call at two in the morning," he says. "It's Carl Reeves on the phone, 'Pastor. We need you. You gotta get out here, now.' And so I go. I get in my truck and I go," he says. "It turns out Carl has a cow that has taken sick and he wants me to pray for it. To get in the mud, put my hands on this cow and pray for divine intervention on behalf of this bovine beast. And so, there I am. In the mud, chasing this cow around, trying to get my hands on the thing long enough to spit out a prayer."

Right then, I was being rescued. I had left the church and this was the beginning of my way back. As it goes with hypocrisy, judgement, dogmatism, and all the rest of it that Jesus put to death, it's hard to see in yourself what you readily see in others. And into my cynicism and anger my friend began to dream aloud, "What if church really was like family. What if we pretended the, 'brother and sister, son and daughter,' stuff was real. What if relationships were thought to be rare and valuable things. What if it was just a bunch of people that loved each other and were simply trying their best to follow this Jesus we read of in scripture. What if we pretended, the 'love your neighbor as yourself,' thing was a better way to live. What if we got in the mud for each other at two in the morning? What if the cow dies and it's ok because we are there, in it together. What if we pretended we are all sinners. What if we pretended grace is real. What if the word 'pretend' felt less powerful than the word 'believe' because we did actually believe. What if…"

Live At The Wheelhouse EP out now!
Watch videos here: https://wtk.lnk.to/LiveAtTheWheelhouse/youtube

Out The Way EP: https://lilmaru.lnk.to/Out_The_Way

Akon is a Grammy-nominated Senegalese-American artist, producer, entrepreneur, and actor, known for his impact on the global music scene and the African music movement. His unique style blends Pop, R&B, Hip-Hop, and EDM, earning him a massive online following of over 130 million and worldwide sales of 35 million albums. With five Grammy nominations, 45 Billboard Hot 100 hits, four Diamond records, and more than 300 collaborations with legends like Michael Jackson, David Guetta, Gwen Stefani, Lil Wayne, and Eminem, Akon's influence is unmistakable. 

Akon's list of achievements include being the first artist in history to simultaneously hold the #1 and #2 song on the Billboard Hot 100 twice, a Billboard Music Award for "Artist of the Year. American Music Award for "Favorite R&B Male Artist,"and three World Music Awards. He holds a Guinness World Record as the top-selling artist for ringtones and is the first artist to achieve 1 Billion views on YouTube in history.

Recognized by Forbes in their Celebrity 100 list, Akon was also chosen by Pepsi to create the FIFA World Cup anthem, "Oh Africa." As the founder of the KONVICT empire, which includes labels and management companies, Akon launched superstars like T-Pain and Lady Gaga, generating over $2.5 billion in combined revenue for the music industry. 

Up next for the global hitmaker is the hotly anticipated anthem, “Akon’s Beautiful Day.” Radiating resilience and hope, the song’s message aligns with Akon’s broader mission to inspire millions through his work in Africa, where he champions access to energy and drives digital transformation with projects like 'Akon Power & Lighting Africa.' The track was recently teased on Akon’s Instagram, amassing 5.8M views and counting—further proving that his influence on the industry and his fans will endure for generations. 

Beyond music, Akon is dedicated to humanitarian work. His "Akon Lighting Africa" project has brought solar-powered electricity to 14 countries across Africa, improving the lives of millions.

Lynette is following