DeWayne Woods

A Kansas City, MO native, gospel artist, and praise & worship testifier, DeWayne Woods got his musical education at the Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts and began his professional career proper after a chance meeting with John P. Kee. He soon became a key member of Kee’s gospel ensemble, the New Life Community Choir, and continued with Kee’s next ensemble, the Company. He worked with several of contemporary gospel’s leading lights, and backed artists Celine Dion, Kirk Whalum, Kurt Carr, and Karen Clark-Sheard, among others, before launching his own solo career and ministry. His first album, Introducing DeWayne Woods & When Singers Meet, generated a huge gospel hit with “Let Go” in 2007, earning the singer numerous awards, allowing him to relocate from Chicago to Atlanta and assume the role of Director of Worship & Arts at Divine Faith Ministries International. After contracting the HIV virus in the ’90s, Woods generated some controversy when he announced he had stopped taking the various drugs that kept the virus in check, had put his health in the hands of God, and then declared that he was healed. Healed or not, it didn’t keep him from singing, ministering, and staying positive in his life. His second album, My Life’s Lyric, produced — like his first — by P.J. Morton, Daniel Weatherspoon, and Aaron Lindsey, appeared in 2010. ~ Steve Leggett