June 3, 2025
Kirk Franklin is teaming up with Insignia Belongings on a Black-owned media merger that is trying to rework the media panorama.
Kirk Franklin is heavy on the “For Us By Us” with the launch of a brand new enterprise enterprise powered by an all-Black possession group that’s trying to reshape the media panorama.
Grammy-winning gospel icon Kirk Franklin has joined forces with Insignia Belongings, a brand new leisure enterprise based by Norman Gyam and Jonathan Jay.
The partnership, introduced on June 2, merges Franklin’s Fo Yo Soul Recordings and CLTRE Lab with Insignia’s broad portfolio, which spans recorded music, publishing, tv, touring, movie, and stay occasions. As a part of the deal, Franklin will tackle an energetic management function as chief of inventive providers for Insignia Belongings.
“It’s Black-owned. It’s Black enterprise,” Franklin tells BLACK ENTERPRISE. “It’s from the tradition for the tradition. It’s males of colour which might be unifying their imaginative and prescient, their property, their assets, their presents, their skills to maneuver and push the agenda of inspiration and aspiration ahead by the medium of leisure.”
“We wish to seize. We wish to interact. We wish to rework. We wish to talk in order that we will have a transparent dialog of the larger issues of life, the larger function of life, to have the ability to level folks vertically whereas creating and curating horizontally,” he provides.
To start out the brand new enterprise, Franklin will drop a brand new single, “Do It Once more,” on June 6, three days earlier than accepting the BET Final Icon Award on the 2025 BET Awards. On Sunday, June 15, Franklin’s media firm, CLTRE Lab, will group up with Insignia Belongings’ 3 Diamonds Leisure to supply Den of Kings, a dinner dialog collection hosted by Franklin.
The premiere episode, centering on the theme of “fatherhood” and that includes friends D.C. Younger Fly, Kountry Wayne, Lou Younger, and Devale Ellis, will debut on Franklin’s YouTube channel in honor of Father’s Day. Modeled round Franklin’s love for communing over wonderful eating and good dialog, the gospel star brings collectively a gaggle of Black males in comedy for significant conversations about life.
“It’s humorous, it’s partaking. And we’re not there to evangelise. It’s not a preaching dialog. We’re listening, we’re laughing, we’re crying, we’re struggling, we’ve got the strain, we’re debating,” Franklin mentioned of the primary episode. “It’s a lovely second to see Black males on this house. The extent of vulnerability that you just’re going to see from this second goes to be spectacular.”
Teaming up with Insignia Belongings is an enormous step inside the house of Black-owned media. As a Black-owned and self-funded leisure firm, Insignia boasts a various music portfolio that features Christian and gospel labels Tribl Information, Maverick Metropolis Music, and Franklin’s Fo Yo Soul Recordings, together with the R&B label Platform Sounds.
Photograph credit score: Rob Ector
The corporate additionally operates a number of different divisions, together with Undivided Leisure for touring and stay occasions; 3 Diamonds Leisure for tv and movie manufacturing; and the Icho Group, which serves because the advertising and marketing powerhouse behind the multifaceted enterprise. As a part of the settlement, 3 Diamonds Leisure will function the manufacturing companion for choose scripted and unscripted tasks from Franklin’s CLTRE Lab, providing each manufacturing providers and funding to deliver authentic storytelling to life throughout a number of codecs.
“We’ve labored with Kirk for a while now—from the 2022 launch of the multi-GRAMMY®-winning collaborative album, Kingdom, to producing sold-out enviornment excursions with him consecutively over the previous few years,” mentioned Norman Gyam, co-founder and CEO of Insignia Belongings. “At present, we’re thrilled to fortify and deepen our partnership by welcoming Kirk to our government group and by charting a course for the longer term with him from recorded music to touring, movie/TV to digital media, and extra. We’re collectively very pleased with this second.”
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