Celebrating Muyiwa Olarewaju

For this year’s Black History Month, we are celebrating trailblazers in the UK who have gained accolades for their numerous accomplishments within the music and performing arts industries, and therefore we are kicking it off with one of our very own RSL Fellows, Muyiwa Olarewaju, OBE, FRSL. 

Muyiwa Olarewaju OBE is British gospel artist, broadcaster and performer recognised for his services to music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020. Muyiwa’s Pan-African fusion gospel music spans decades in the industry and has seen him host for five years as a celebrity judge on BBC’s Songs of Praise Gospel Choir of the Year Competition. He is also station director of the biggest gospel radio station in the UK, Premier Gospel, which gathers an impressive 180,000 listeners a month! 

To add to his stack of accolades, Muyiwa recently hosted an event at the Houses of Parliament in celebration of Gospel Heritage Month in September 2023 to support the #Gospel4All initiative. The #Gospel4All initiative is a new endeavour pioneered by Premier Gospel with the goal of elevating, motivating and enlightening individuals through the soulful tunes of Gospel music. 

Muyiwa also leads a gospel collective, Riversongz, a group whom as a collective have toured with Stevie Wonder, and worked with other fantastic artists such as Amy Winehouse, Pixie Lott and Emeli Sandé. The group have released five hugely successful albums, one of which held the top spot on the HMV Jazz & Blues chart for five months! In 2009 Riversongz made history by becoming the first international artists to appear on the American BET channel at the annual “Celebration of Gospel”, and in 2010 they became the first gospel group to sell out the Indigo at The O2 venue in London.