Johnmark Wiggan affirms God’s love through ‘Validation’ album
Published:Friday | January 5, 2024 | 12:06 AMShanel Lemmie/Staff Reporter
Through his latest album, Validation, Gospel sensation Johnmark Wiggan is moving to affirm people in God’s love.
Released on October 28 last year, Wiggan, who was Jamaica’s Male Artiste of the Year, said when curating the project he had no doubt of its success because God revealed it to him.
“If you get revelation from God according to his word then you’ll have relevance,” he began. “So you need a mission and a purpose and a theme to run with. Like what is your personal assignment, and I had found mine. God told me it was to validate his people. So with that revelation I was able to get the song from him that spoke to that theme. Song after song to just be current to the times, use the genres that he has gifted you to use, dancehall, reggae, soca. He had graced me to use those and I use those effectively to communicate this message.”
Though the majority of the songs were written within the six month-period prior to the album’s release, Wiggan says God has been giving him the words for years.
He explained, “I didn’t realise that the album started being written like four years aback. So songs like Lover Like This and Beautiful, I didn’t know that they were pointed towards the theme until I started getting more songs and say ‘oh this is what you’ve been trying to say. So you’ve been giving me song after song geared towards this theme’.”
Explaining what the concept means to him, he said, “To be validated is to be affirmed. To be affirmed is to have a statement placed over you that is positive, that is truthful and that is honest from the word of God because many people might say who they think you are and that might be against your purpose and against God’s will. And again the word of God tells you who you are. I live my life aligned with what he said I am and so that is my assignment, to tell everybody else what he said about them.”
Just before ministering with his latest additions to his discography at the recent staging of Genesis Praise Fest, Wiggan marvelled at his gratitude for being so targeted in his ability to communicate God’s message.
“I was elated because I had grown weary of singing songs just because it’s a gospel song or because it’s a hit song. I wanted to find a purpose, and speaking to a mentor like Rondell Positive, if you’ve watched his ministry you will realise that it’s pointed and it has a direct mission behind it, and that’s purpose. I spoke to him about it and he said any time God gives you that one word you study that, you read that, you eat that, you sleep that, and you focus on that so you won’t be all over the place with your ministry. You will be pointed and focused on what he sent you to do. So that was a relief for me to not try to do a bag of things, just focus.”
The project has 14 tracks, including collaborations from Alicia Taylor and Kevin Downswell.