Photos courtesy of Charity Green.
Members of ENVOY, from left: Greg McKinney, Jeremy Jefferson, Danielle Johnson, D.J. High, Abijah Cunningham, Kendrick Fincher, Cheree May, Bri Woodley and Shanice Marie.
Kendrick Fincher’s musical career has taken him around the world and exposed him to people of all different backgrounds. Now, the Trussville resident is using those experiences to pursue an endeavor a little closer to home while spreading a message that he believes will change the world.
Fincher is the founding member of ENVOY, a 10-person musical group dedicated to sharing a message of hope. The group was assembled in December 2016, and the members are working on their first single, set to be released July 31.
While ENVOY’s music doesn’t yet have its own identity, it will involve genres including Christian, inspirational and gospel, because there are so many different personalities in the group, Fincher said.
Because of his work as a musician and a musical producer, Fincher said he doesn’t have one style.
“So I really want to branch out and try to touch everyone musically,” he said.
More important than the genre is the message, which Fincher said he hopes will shine through in everythingthey sing.
“I feel like, if you write from a real place talking about real issues, real things that we deal with, people can relate to it,” he said.
Fincher said each of the group’s members has the qualities of leaders he felt were important.
“Having a vision, having a purpose, having a dream is always good, but you also have to have action,” he said. “So you’ve gotta have those people around you who are willing to work.”
One such person is Hoover resident Shanice Marie, who met Fincher through church.
“I had the pleasure of working with Kendrick outside of ENVOY, and he approached me and let me know that he had prayed about a group and wanted to ask me to be a part of it,” she said. “So I prayed about it myself, and I just wanted to help him support the vision and do as much as I can for the Kingdom.”
While Marie has participated in a number of other musical endeavors, she said her experience with ENVOY has had one important difference.
“I feel like we’re all on one accord, and we all have one mission,” she said. “And it’s not just to produce great music; it’s literally to build the Kingdom and gain souls and minister to people.”
It’s a mission the group hopes to accomplish in a number of ways.
“Singing is the nucleus of what we do … but the dream that God gave me initially is way bigger than that,”Fincher said.
He said he hopes that, within the next three to five years, ENVOY’s success will provide opportunities to assist in ministries such as building homes and creatingcommunity centers.
“Outreach is going to be huge for us,” Fincher said.
Member Charity Green said that although being a part of ENVOY is a large undertaking, it’s one that is worth the effort.
“The more we have coming in, the more we sacrifice other things — whether it be a job or whatever the case — to push harder on ENVOY,” Green said. “Because we ultimately know that it’s going to be something that helps so many people, something that can be [on] an international level, something that can show love to the entire world.”
According to Marie, the group already is starting to create changes in people’s lives — even if those lives are their own.
“I’ve never felt more free in worship than I do right now in my life,” she said. “I’ve never been able to connect to the songs like I am right now, to minister, to truly understand what it means to be a worship leader and to stand in the gap between people and sometimes Christ.”
Although ENVOY was only recently introduced to the public, the group has already been booked for a number of events, according to Green.
At 6 p.m. on July 29, ENVOY will celebrate the release of its first single, “It’s Gonna Be All Right,” with a free concert at the Birmingham Entertainment Center. Fincher said he hopes the full album will be released at the beginning of 2018.
Ultimately, he and the others want the group to help people who are facing struggles find hope.
“I really want people, when they see ENVOY, [to] see themselves,” he said. “I want them to see transparency. I don’t want them to see perfect, because it’s not a perfect group. It’s real people with real issues, real problems, but they’re choosing to spread a positive message even through the issues.”
Marie said she hopes ENVOY will help challenge people’s views of what believers should be versus what they are.
“At the end of the day, we’re all humans,” she said. “We all come in different packages, shapes, sizes, shades, backgrounds, but we’re all here for the glory of God.”
To find out more about ENVOY, find them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter or Instagram, @kendandenvoy.
