Book Us

Common Hymnal started out with a vision to build a well-stocked library of forward-facing content from the spiritual underground.

Each of the contributors to this library have invested deeply in the work, sacrificing both money and time. We have avoided leveraging celebrity and the instantly-accessible, fiercely-popular and ‘lyrically-safe’ CCM worship genre for financial success. No cliches, no forced emoting, no gimmicks. We set our sights on forging a new path, a hard path - dare we say, a prophetic path.

Because our initial focus was songs and songwriters, it was a surprise when we looked up and realized that we had some really gifted performers in the ecosystem. When we got our first invite - to write and sing a song for the 55th anniversary of MLK’s Anti- Vietnam war speech at Riverside Church in Harlem - we responded in the positive

Now, a few years later, we have logged a good number of events: from touring with Live Free USA to supporting Red Letter Christians initiatives in multiple locations; from performing at The King Center’s Beloved Community Awards as part of their King Holiday celebrations to partnering with them and a Jewish organization, The Convergence Collective, on a Soulful Shabbat; from writing and performing the theme song at The Carter Center’s Human Rights Defender’s Forum to hosting a songwriting stream for the Children’s Defense Fund’s annual camp; from performing at the Grand Finale of Kehinde Wiley’s “Archeology of Silence” Exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco to participating in a series of social justice lectures at the University of Pennsylvania; from performing at the final night of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference to leading worship at CCDA’s annual conference; not to mention the various one offs and appearances on stages with Abigail Disney, Ben Cohen (of Ben and Jerry’s), Brian Courtney Wilson, Carlos Rodriguez, Dee-1, Dr Bernice King, Goapele, Jemar Tisby, Jenifer Lewis, Juan Winans, Kirk Whalum, Pastor Mike McBride, Rev Mark Thompson, Rev Sekou, Shane Claiborne, Tamika Mallory, Ted Poe, United Pursuit, etc.

When we started getting invites to put together pop-up bands for events, we found ourselves in a quandary because we could not ask our people to sacrifice any more for something that was not in the original plan. If we were going to ask our contributors to travel away from home and, in some cases, take leave from work, we wanted to make sure that this new activity would be good for them and their families.

The truth is that we do not have the name awareness or the draw to warrant the money that is necessary to send out a team. Therefore, when people ask us to put together a custom team for an event, but do not have the resources, we prefer to help out in other ways - maybe helping them build an appropriate repertoire for their local band to play from our song catalog, or giving them gratis permission to use our recordings and videos?

Having got this disclaimer out of the way, if you would like to book us for an event, please email us and we will send you our financial construct and rider.

We can pull together a compelling team with as few as four people, a keyboard, acoustic guitar and tracks. However, we will always require to add a sound engineer to ensure a quality experience.

One of our favorite things to do is house shows, which we affectionately call ‘Soirees’. (Soiree is a French word to describe a hospitality-laden house party with music performances, food and drink.) Soirees are easier and cheaper to pull off than full-production events, as they typically do not need a PA or a sound engineer,