Variety dubbed Franklin as a "Reigning King of Urban Gospel",[3] and is one of the inaugural inductees into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Franklin was raised by his aunt, Gertrude, having been abandoned as a baby by his mother.

[6] In his teenage years, Franklin rebelled against his strict religious upbringing, and in an attempt to keep him out of trouble, his grandmother arranged an audition for him at a professional youth conservatory associated with a local university.

[7] Franklin studied music with Jewell Kelly and the Singing Chaparrals at Oscar Dean Wyatt High School.

Impressed, Biggham enlisted him to lead the DFW Mass Choir in a recording of Franklin's song "Every Day with Jesus".

This led to Biggham hiring Franklin, just 20 years old at the time, to lead the choir at the 1990 Gospel Music Workshop of America Convention, an industry gathering.

It was only the third gospel music album to sell over a million units after Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace and BeBe & CeCe Winans' Addictive Love.

With production by Houston and Mervyn Warren, the composition was included on the best-selling gospel album of all time, soundtrack to The Preacher's Wife.

The lead single, "Stomp", featuring Cheryl "Salt" James (of Salt-N-Pepa), was a crossover hit, enjoying heavy rotation on MTV and other music channels and charting at No.

"Lean on Me" and the second single "Revolution" (featuring Rodney Jerkins) were considerable hits, and the album contained a version of a Bill Withers song "Gonna Be a Lovely Day".

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Franklin induced God's Property founder Linda Searight into signing an "onerous and one-sided" contract with B-Rite Music.

In 2000, a select amount of The Family filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for royalties for their work on The Nu Nation Project against Franklin and GospoCentric Records.

On January 16, 2010, at the 25th Annual Stellar Awards show taping in Nashville, Tennessee, Kirk Franklin & The Family reunited briefly on stage to perform songs made popular by them in the 1990s.

[citation needed] Both The Family and God's Property, would reunite in 2023 for The Reunion Tour, which also featured The Clark Sisters, Tye Tribbett, and Israel Houghton.

Jakes, Shirley Caesar, Willie Neal Johnson, TobyMac, Crystal Lewis, Jaci Velasquez, Papa San, Alvin Slaughter, and Yolanda Adams.

In January 2010, after Haiti had a devastating earthquake, Franklin got an ensemble of gospel artists together to sing the song he wrote, called "Are You Listening".

[citation needed] In 2005, Franklin appeared with his wife on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss how he ended his pornography addiction.

[21] Franklin served as the host and co-executive producer of the BET original series Sunday Best and the musical co-host of GSN's The American Bible Challenge with Jeff Foxworthy.

[citation needed] In February 2019, it was announced that BET's gospel music reality competition, Sunday Best would return from a four-year hiatus.

He stated that he was boycotting the award show going forward as it was not the first time they had edited his acceptance speech to remove "reflections on police violence against Black Americans".

[35] On May 21, 2021, Franklin and American rapper Lil Baby released the song "We Win" for the soundtrack to the 2021 film Space Jam: A New Legacy.

In November 1996, Franklin had a near death experience after accidentally falling from a stage into an orchestra pit during a concert in Memphis, he had suffered a head injury which had left him in critical condition before making a full recovery.

[37][38][39][40] In March 2021, Franklin's oldest son, Kerrion, released an audio recording of a private conversation between him and his father in which both can be heard using profanities.