Maverick City Music is an American contemporary worship collective founded in 2018 by Tony Brown and Jonathan Jay in Atlanta, Georgia. Built from songwriting camps that brought together over a hundred Christian artists, the group grew from a living room project into one of the biggest names in modern worship music. Maverick City has won five Grammy Awards, five GMA Dove Awards, and a Billboard Music Award, and its songs “Jireh,” “Promises,” and “Wait on You” have become staples in churches around the world.
You’ve probably heard Maverick City even if you didn’t know the name. Their songs are the ones that show up on Sunday morning playlists next to Kirk Franklin and Elevation Worship, the ones that somehow feel like a gospel choir and a coffeehouse acoustic set at the same time. That blend is the whole point. Maverick City set out to break the wall between Black gospel tradition and white contemporary Christian music, and for a while, it worked better than almost anyone expected.
2025 changed that story. Founding members Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine left the collective, a lawsuit landed, and fans started asking hard questions about who actually runs Maverick City and why. This guide walks through all of it: the founding, the members, the lineup shakeups, the money fight, and where the group stands today.
Maverick City Music: At a Glance
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Group name | Maverick City Music (also called Mav City, Mav Music) |
| Formed | 2018, Atlanta, Georgia |
| Founders | Tony Brown and Jonathan Jay |
| Current CEO | Norman Gyamfi |
| Genre(s) | Contemporary worship, contemporary gospel, CCM |
| Record label | Tribl Records, under Insignia Assets |
| Management | Undivided Entertainment |
| Notable current/recent members | Dante Bowe, Tasha Cobbs Leonard, Todd Galberth, Ryan Ofei, Alton Eugene, Ashley Hess |
| Notable former members | Chandler Moore, Naomi Raine, Brandon Lake, Aaron Moses, Joe L. Barnes, Harold Brown |
| Years active | 2018 to present |
| Notable songs | “Jireh,” “Promises,” “Wait on You,” “Refiner” |
| Notable albums | Breathe, Kingdom Book One, Old Church Basement, The Maverick Way Complete |
| Awards | 5 Grammy Awards, 5 GMA Dove Awards, 1 Billboard Music Award, 1 Soul Train Music Award |
| Website | maverickcitymusic.com |
[IMAGE: Maverick City Music performing live on stage with full band and vocalists]
What Is the Story Behind Maverick City Music?
Maverick City started as a side project, not a plan. Tony Brown and Jonathan Jay had already worked together on a worship gathering called House Fires. But they wanted something different. So they started hosting songwriting camps, pulling in artists and writers from across the country to sit in a room and just make music together.
Over 17 camps, more than 100 songwriters passed through. Most of them had never had a real platform in the contemporary Christian music world, especially Black artists and women. Jay and Brown wanted to fix that. The goal was simple: build a space where the “unspoken rules” of the CCM industry didn’t apply.
Those camps produced hundreds of songs. Some of them were good enough that Jay and Brown realized they weren’t just House Fires leftovers. They were something new. Maverick City Music released its first project, Maverick City, Vol. 1, in July 2019. It landed at number 10 on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums chart. Nobody expected what came next.
Members and Lineup: Who Is In Maverick City Music?
Maverick City has never worked like a traditional band with a fixed lineup. It functions more like a rotating collective, built around a core group of featured vocalists who lead most of the recordings and tours.
The names most associated with Maverick City’s rise include Chandler Moore, Naomi Raine, Dante Bowe, Aaron Moses, Joe L. Barnes, and Alton Eugene, alongside gospel veterans like Tasha Cobbs Leonard, Todd Galberth, and Ryan Ofei, who joined the roster and won a JUNO Award for his work with the collective.
People search “is Brandon Lake in Maverick City Music” a lot, and the honest answer is: not anymore. Brandon Lake is a former member. He signed with Bethel Music in 2019 and built most of his solo career from there, but he wrote and toured with Maverick City for years and still shows up as a featured guest on their biggest tracks, including “Fear Is Not My Future” and “Talking to Jesus.” Think of him now as a close collaborator rather than an official member.
Norman Gyamfi joined as a part-owner and executive around 2021 and helped launch Tribl Records with Brown and Jay. He’s not a vocalist, but he became one of the most powerful people in the organization, and that matters for what happened later.[IMAGE: Maverick City Music core vocalists singing together during a live worship set]
Rise to Prominence
Maverick City’s breakout moment came with “Jireh,” a collaboration with Elevation Worship released in 2021 on the joint album Old Church Basement. The song topped Billboard’s Christian charts and won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance. Suddenly a group that started in a shed full of songwriters was performing at the Grammys, the first act in the gospel category to get a televised performance slot in more than two decades.
Their debut studio album, Breathe (2021), won Best Contemporary Christian Music Album at the 65th Grammy Awards in 2023, alongside three more wins that night. Kingdom Book One, a 2022 collaboration with Kirk Franklin recorded live inside Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami, pushed the group further into cultural conversation. The project addressed mass incarceration directly, and its single “Fear Is Not My Future,” featuring Brandon Lake and Chandler Moore, won Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance.
By 2023, Maverick City wasn’t a niche worship project anymore. They were selling out arenas, collaborating with Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes name-checking their influence, and topping both Christian and gospel charts at the same time, something almost no other act had managed to do consistently.
Discography
| Title | Year | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Maverick City, Vol. 1 | 2019 | EP |
| Maverick City, Vol. 2 | 2019 | EP |
| Maverick City Vol. 3, Part 1 | 2020 | Live album |
| Maverick City, Vol. 3 Pt. 2 | 2020 | Live album |
| You Hold It All Together (with Upperroom) | 2020 | EP |
| Old Church Basement (with Elevation Worship) | 2021 | Studio album |
| Breathe | 2021 | Studio album |
| A Very Maverick Christmas | 2021 | Live album |
| Jubilee: Juneteenth Edition | 2021 | Live album |
| Kingdom Book One (with Kirk Franklin) | 2022 | Studio album |
| The Maverick Way Complete | 2023 | Studio album |
| MAVHOUSE (with Song House) | 2024 | Live project |
| A Very Very Maverick Christmas | 2025 | Live album |
Lineup Changes: Who Got Kicked Off Maverick City?
Maverick City has lost more members than most collectives its size, and the exits haven’t all looked the same.
Dante Bowe’s exit was the loudest one for years. In September 2022, the group announced they were “pausing” their professional relationship with him over “behavior that is inconsistent with our core values and beliefs.” The statement didn’t name a reason, so fans filled in the blanks fast. Some pointed to a video of Bowe dancing to a Bad Bunny song on a party bus. Others noted comments where he said he hoped to see Lil Nas X perform at the Grammys. The real reason, according to group co-founder Norman Gyamfi on a 2024 podcast episode, was a full-frontal nude photo Bowe accidentally posted to his Instagram story. Bowe has since pushed back on the “kicked out” framing, telling podcaster Tim Ross that he was never formally removed, just asked to step back for six months. Reporting from 2025 indicates he has returned to working with the collective since.
Aaron Moses and Joe L. Barnes both left in 2022 as well, quietly stepping away from the group’s core lineup without the same public drama.
Why Did Naomi Raine and Chandler Moore Leave Maverick City?
This is the one everyone’s asking about. On October 6, 2025, founding members Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine both announced their departures from Maverick City Music, on the same day, through separate social media posts.
Moore called it “the bittersweet decision to end my relationship with Maverick City Music,” describing the last two years as a season of “refocusing” on what matters in his life and career. Raine wrote that after “a lot of prayer and consideration,” she believed God was calling her to lead worship on her own. Both framed it as a new chapter, not a falling out.
But there was more going on behind the announcement. Five days earlier, on October 1, Moore had filed a federal lawsuit against Maverick City, Tribl Records, and CEO Norman Gyamfi, who had previously been Moore’s personal manager before taking over the company. The suit accused Gyamfi of forging Moore’s signature, striking deals without his knowledge, and diverting roughly $800,000 in royalties that should have gone directly to Moore, including money from a 2022 arrangement where Sony’s Christian publishing arm sent his royalties to Maverick City instead of to him.
Maverick City has denied the claims outright. Co-founder Jonathan Jay called them “categorically false” and accused Moore of trying to “strong-arm a way out of agreements Chandler made freely and later breached.” The group countersued, alleging Moore failed to deliver on songwriting and recording obligations tied to advance payments, and separately claimed he violated a morality clause in his contract over alleged extramarital affairs. Moore’s side has denied that this is the real motivation behind the countersuit.
Co-founder Tony Brown added another layer to the legal mess, filing a separate racketeering claim alleging he was pressured into an unfavorable buyout of his ownership stake back in 2023, the same year Gyamfi became CEO. In February 2026, a federal judge cleared Moore to release independent solo music while the broader case continues, rejecting Maverick City’s attempt to block his first solo single under his old recording contract.
So is Chandler Moore no longer with Maverick City? Correct, as of late 2025 he’s out, and the split came with real legal weight behind it, not just a friendly goodbye.[IMAGE: Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine performing during a Maverick City live worship set]
Faith, Theology, and Musical Philosophy
Maverick City identifies as a Christian worship collective, and its mission has always centered on inclusion inside the church. Jay and Brown built the group specifically to give voice to artists, especially Black and female worship leaders, who felt shut out of the traditional CCM industry. Their songs draw heavily on scripture, personal testimony, and the raw, unpolished energy of a live room full of people worshipping together rather than a studio-perfect performance.
That approach has made them a bridge between two worship traditions that historically stayed separate: the vocal-driven, choir-rooted sound of Black gospel and the guitar-and-band sound of white evangelical CCM. Supporters see that blend as a genuinely new contribution to worship music. Critics inside the traditional gospel space have argued the opposite, that Maverick City waters down gospel’s roots. Gyamfi added fuel to that debate in 2025 when he said on a podcast that traditional gospel had gone “stale” and that gospel singers were trained to “over-sing,” comments that drew real backlash across the industry for how they framed Black gospel tradition.
Controversies and Criticism
Maverick City has faced more public scrutiny than most worship groups its size, partly because of how fast it grew and partly because of how visible its members are on social media.
Beyond the Dante Bowe situation and the Moore lawsuit, the group has drawn criticism from conservative Christian commentators over individual members’ social media posts, guest collaborations, and tour lineups they viewed as inconsistent with a traditional evangelical statement of faith. Some of this criticism has circulated under the search term “Maverick City false teaching.” Worth being direct here: these claims mostly come from a handful of independent watchdog blogs and social media accounts, not from any official doctrinal statement or denominational body, and Maverick City has not issued a public response addressing “false teaching” as a formal accusation. Readers should treat these as contested, unofficial claims rather than settled fact.
A related search, “does Maverick City Music support LGBTQ,” comes from the same corner of the internet. Maverick City has not released an official public statement on the topic, and no verified reporting confirms an organizational position either way. What’s out there instead is speculation tied to individual members’ friendships, guest artists, and social media activity, which isn’t the same thing as a group stance.
Influence and Legacy
Whatever you make of the controversies, Maverick City’s impact on worship music is hard to argue with. They helped pull gospel and CCM into the same conversation after decades of the two staying largely separate. Younger worship leaders now cite them as a reason they started writing their own songs instead of only performing hymns and CCM radio staples. Their live-recorded, unpolished style has become the template a lot of newer worship collectives are chasing.
They also opened doors commercially that gospel and worship music rarely walked through before, mainstream Grammy performances, collaborations with pop artists, arena tours that sell out on their own name. For a project that started as a group of songwriters in a room trying to write something honest, that’s a significant footprint.
Awards and Recognition
- 5 Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary Christian Music Album for Breathe (2023) and Best Gospel Album for Kingdom Book One Deluxe (2023)
- 5 GMA Dove Awards
- 1 Billboard Music Award
- 1 Soul Train Music Award
- Multiple additional Grammy nominations across Gospel and Contemporary Christian categories
Interesting Facts
- Maverick City’s very first project was recorded during songwriting camps, before the group even had a settled lineup.
- Kingdom Book One was recorded inside a working prison, Everglades Correctional Institution, as part of a project focused on mass incarceration.
- The group’s 2022 Grammy performance was the first time in over 20 years a gospel act performed live on the televised broadcast.
- Maverick City’s label, Tribl Records, also represents other worship and gospel artists, including Travis Greene.
Timeline
- 2018: Tony Brown and Jonathan Jay found Maverick City Music in Atlanta after years of songwriting camps.
- 2019: Maverick City, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 released, debuting on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums chart.
- 2021: “Jireh” and Old Church Basement, with Elevation Worship, break the group into the mainstream.
- 2022: Dante Bowe’s exit becomes public in September; Aaron Moses and Joe L. Barnes also depart.
- 2022: Kingdom Book One, recorded with Kirk Franklin inside a Florida prison, is released.
- 2023: Maverick City wins four Grammy Awards at the 65th ceremony; Norman Gyamfi becomes CEO after buying out Tony Brown’s stake.
- October 1, 2025: Chandler Moore files a federal lawsuit against Gyamfi, Maverick City, and Tribl Records.
- October 6, 2025: Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine announce their departures from the collective.
- February 2026: A federal judge clears Moore to release independent solo music amid ongoing litigation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the CEO of Maverick City Music?
Norman Gyamfi is the current CEO. He joined as a part-owner and executive around 2021, co-founded Tribl Records, and took over the CEO role in 2023 after buying out co-founder Tony Brown’s ownership stake.
Is Chandler Moore no longer with Maverick City?
Correct. Moore announced his departure on October 6, 2025, days after filing a lawsuit against Gyamfi and the company over alleged unpaid royalties and forged agreements.
Why did Naomi and Chandler leave Maverick City?
Both cited personal growth and a calling to pursue music individually. Chandler Moore’s exit came alongside a federal lawsuit alleging financial misconduct by the group’s CEO, which Maverick City has denied.
Is Brandon Lake in Maverick City Music?
Not currently. Lake is a former member who is now primarily a solo artist connected to Bethel Music, though he still appears as a featured guest on Maverick City recordings.
Who got kicked off Maverick City?
Dante Bowe was paused from the group in 2022 over a leaked explicit photo, though he disputes being formally kicked out. Aaron Moses and Joe L. Barnes also left that year. Chandler Moore and Naomi Raine departed in 2025.
Does Maverick City Music support LGBTQ?
No official statement from the group addresses this either way. Claims circulating online are based on speculation about individual members and guest collaborators, not a confirmed organizational position.
What is the religion of Maverick City Music?
Maverick City identifies as a Christian worship collective, drawing members from various evangelical and gospel backgrounds rather than a single denomination.
