Michael W. Smith has three GRAMMY Awards, an astounding 45 GMA Dove Awards, and one American Music Award to his name. Yet, somehow this is his first K-LOVE Fan Award win and his first career K-LOVE Fan Award nomination. Smith, who made an appearance at the show, says the win came as something of a surprise.
“I didn’t really see it coming,” he admitted backstage. “But I knew it was a big song. Any time you have a song that goes worldwide, you sort of go, ‘Is this really happening?’ But it was a special song, and I can tell you it’s a great song because I didn’t write it.”
“Waymaker” was written by Osinachi Okoro, a Nigerian artist and songwriter who goes by the stage name Sinach. The song has literally traveled around the globe, having been recorded by countless artists in numerous languages. Smith even recorded a version in Italian. His original English version was first captured during a worship night he hosted in-the-round at a sold-out Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. It was his daughter, Anna, who first introduced the award-winner to the worship anthem.
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“It was the right song for the right time,” Smith shares. “When they said they wanted to do a radio version, I didn’t really want to do that. I just wanted my heart to be pure in the whole thing because we cut it at Bridgestone—a big live version that lasted six minutes, and I knew that probably wasn’t going to fly on radio. But I reconsidered because of the power of the song.”
In addition to his win for “Worship Song of the Year,” Smith also presented the K-LOVE Fan Award for “Book Impact,” which seems fitting considering the father of five recently released The Way of the Father: Lessons From My Dad, Truths About God, the flagship project for K-LOVE Books.
Ticket packages for the 2022 K-LOVE Fan Awards Weekend are now on sale. Next year’s event will take place May 27-29, 2022 in Nashville.
