By Vera Wisdom-Bassey
Christy Okpo is a fast rising gospel singer, who just released an album titled, Jehovah Reigns.
In this interview, she opened up on her music career, new album and how she often receives songs in her dream.
Okpo also revealed how she was spiritually attacked, and then miraculously got healed from the affliction of issues of blood. Here are excerpts:
Your launched your album recently, could you tell us a bit about it?
The album’s title is Jehovah Reigns. Over time, I have been receiving songs in the dream and l will be wondering what to do with them. So, I decided to produce the album and launch it on my 50th birthday, last year. I have been receiving songs in the dream for the past three years, but the courage to put them together wasn’t there.
Did you have any premonition that one day you will be a gospel artiste? How many songs do you have in your new album? What’s your opinion about gospel music? Do you intend to take it higher than it is now? Where do you think this album will lead you, what were you expecting when you decided to produce this album?
I have loved to sing even from when I was growing up. But I never knew I would go into this (gospel music). My younger sister and I used to sing in the choir at Assemblies of God Church that we were attending then. We also used to sing in Scripture Union. I remember singing a special number one day, and we were just happy about it.
Six.
Gospel music brings you into the presence of God. When I am singing those songs, I feel blessed. Gospel songs bring down the presence of God, and when God presence is drawn down, anything is possible.
Well, that is everybody’s visions.
Initially, I said let people get to know the songs, but now I want to have a musical group so we can go out to perform. By the time we start going out, the songs will be sources of blessing to a larger audience.
Do you have anyone you can call a mentor? Have you at anytime reached out to Pastor Enenche and wife or they are just your secret mentors? Looking at today’s gospel artistes and the ones you knew growing up, how would you compare them? Would you say you were called to do gospel?
Just like I had those dreams where I received songs, I equally do see Pastor Paul Enenche of Dunamis International Church, Abuja. Also, I would see his wife singing those songs in the dream. So, I told myself ‘God wants to use them to teach me a song’. Only songs can draw the presence of God, lift up burdens and make people to get comforted that God has touched them. So, when l look at them, I am encouraged that God is directing me in that area.
l have not met them nor have I contacted them. Even when I travelled to Abuja to attend a conference in their church, I didn’t meet them.
Everybody has what made him to become a gospel music. There must be a reason for you to be a gospel musician. But for those God really called to sing gospel, you always see them standing and anytime they minister, people are blessed. There are also those who are there for entertainment. But then, we all have our reasons for going into gospel music.
I cannot say that.
Those songs, six of them, were they all received in the dream? Aside being a gospel artiste, you are also a school proprietress. Tell us a bit about that? Did you attend any teacher training school? What are the challenges of being a school proprietress?
Among the gospel artistes, whose style of singing would you want to adopt?
That is Elijah Oyelade, because of the presence of God that surrounds him when he ministers. Anytime he sings, people are blessed; he is really loaded. l don’t want to do entertainment. I want to be different in my music so that when I sing, people will be blessed.
Yes, they were all received in the dream. It could be between one, two or three o’clock in the morning. And if I don’t record the songs immediately, I will forget them. Though, there are still songs that l didn’t put into the album, I just decided to start with this six.
Being a proprietress is because I have been a teacher during my youth services, even before then, and till date. After my NYSC in 2002, I got married and started having children because teaching can help you take care of the home and children. l read accounting but I love teaching. I have a passion for teaching; I do it with joy and excitement.
I did my PGD after acquiring a degree. I said to myself ‘this teaching can lead me somewhere, let me get a certificate that can back me up’. So, I did post graduate degree in Education but my first degree was not Education.
When l started my school, there were attacks from everywhere. People confronted me; it’s not easy to own a school. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I had a terrible attack that if not for God I would have become history. The problem was that I was bleeding. I consulted like three gynecologists. It was scary. The doctor asked so many questions like ‘are you on family planning?’ ‘Do you have fibroid?’
After Coronavirus, the devil struck. The pastor of Dunamis Bible School came to the house to pray for me because the blood was still there, and he said to me, ‘Madam what I am seeing is from the school. Did you offend anybody?’ When l was opening the school, I invited him. And before that, I had a dream where my obituary was placed at the school gate. From that day, I said I was no longer going to the hospital because they would only give me drugs, and when the drugs finish, I would come back again. And I was not getting better.
So, the pastor invited me for prayers in his house. Even my children were like ‘mummy what is happening to you?’ My husband was fed up because l couldn’t cook in the kitchen, as the blood was always surging. So, I went to that prayer and it was a miracle. I fell down vibrating, speaking in tongues violently; just like the woman of issues of blood in the Bible who felt in her body that something has happened. So it was for me. Immediately the tap of blood running in my body was closed; the blood that was gushing stopped, I couldn’t imagine it. I went home that Saturday and since then l was off the pad. I cannot count how many pads I changed daily. My husband was happy.
Is your husband in support of your singing?
He’s the one that gave me money to celebrate my 50th birthday. He was even in the studio to produce the album. In the church, he will be singing the songs, and before you know it, he would call me to the altar to sing it.