Gospel artiste Ancel Maloney’s ‘salute’ to fathers present in their children’s lives

Cherisse Moe

For men who show up with­out fan­fare, An­cel Mal­oney’s “Salute” feels like a much-need­ed pat on the back — a hip-hop gospel re­lease cen­tring on fa­thers, step­fa­thers and men­tors in fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.

Mu­si­cal­ly, An­cel flows with con­fi­dence. His de­liv­ery is con­ver­sa­tion­al yet rhyth­mic, packed with punch­lines and quotable lines. He spent a full month care­ful­ly craft­ing the lyrics. He mapped out trib­utes to men in the first verse and shared per­son­al re­flec­tions about his own fa­ther in the sec­ond be­fore ty­ing the bars to­geth­er.

“The beau­ty of the gospel is that it can be de­liv­ered in dif­fer­ent for­mats,” he tells We Life & Cul­ture. “Je­sus spoke about fish around fish­er­men, he spoke about sheep around farm­ers, he used a lan­guage that the peo­ple of that time can un­der­stand. Hip Hop is a lan­guage that peo­ple un­der­stand to­day.”

Salute stands as a rare homage. Ask some­one to name five songs that speak specif­i­cal­ly to pos­i­tive fa­ther­hood off the top of their head, and many would strug­gle. This void is one rea­son An­cel wrote the track, his fifth sin­gle. The oth­er was a se­ries of on­line dis­cus­sions where he felt men were not be­ing fair­ly rep­re­sent­ed.

“I saw some push­back against an ar­ti­cle on so­cial me­dia, which didn’t show men in a pos­i­tive light for In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day. Since I have been con­nect­ed with great men and strive to be­come one my­self, I de­cid­ed to write a trib­ute just to say ‘I see your work and ef­forts and I salute you!’ I hope this song en­cour­ages oth­ers to al­so salute the men who have helped to shape their lives pos­i­tive­ly.”

As a fa­ther of three him­self, An­cel knows the weight he is rap­ping about. He de­scribes fa­ther­hood as “one of the most re­ward­ing and tax­ing projects I have un­der­tak­en.” He says men thrive on gen­uine ap­pre­ci­a­tion, some­thing he was in­ten­tion­al about in­clud­ing in the lyrics. “If he is con­sis­tent day in, day out, he should be cel­e­brat­ed day in, day out. If you see a good man, do­ing a good job, take a mo­ment to ac­knowl­edge and salute him.”

And what about those who fall short? An­cel has a mes­sage for them, too. “God’s de­sign for fam­i­lies is per­fect. He cre­at­ed man and woman to share the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of rais­ing chil­dren. When you, as a man, do not do your part, it af­fects the fam­i­ly, the com­mu­ni­ty, and the na­tion.”

Not fa­mil­iar with the name An­cel Mal­oney? Here’s a quick his­to­ry les­son. He has six gospel tracks un­der his belt and has worked with the late ca­lyp­so icon Denyse Plum­mer. He ini­tial­ly ap­proached her about us­ing the cho­rus from her hit ca­lyp­so “Nah Leav­ing” for his 2020 project “Too Good.” She agreed on the con­di­tion that the song be re­worked in­to an in­spi­ra­tional tes­ti­mo­ny re­flect­ing her new path as a Chris­t­ian artiste. That col­lab­o­ra­tion even­tu­al­ly led to “Cyah Leave Him.” “She was so cool to work with and I thank God for that ex­pe­ri­ence. See you in Heav­en, Aun­tie Denyse!”

Mu­sic has been close to An­cel’s heart since he was a child grow­ing up in a home where the ra­dio stayed on 24/7. His moth­er sang in church and his fa­ther played the drums, so he picked up both skills even­tu­al­ly. He was in the Curepe Pen­te­costal Kids’ Choir, Pre­cious Voic­es, from around age six, and be­gan writ­ing his own songs at 11 be­fore his ra­dio de­but in 2015 with the track “Good Morn­ing.”

An­cel, who cred­its the strong male mod­els in his life, es­pe­cial­ly his dad, Gor­don Mal­oney, for the man he has be­come, has been on a ra­dio tour in­tro­duc­ing “Salute” to lis­ten­ers on sta­tions in­clud­ing Sky 99.5 FM. He hopes the song, re­leased on June 6, will be part of na­tion­al Fa­ther’s Day con­ver­sa­tions, with its mes­sage res­onat­ing long af­ter.

“Salute” by An­cel (use as side­bar)*

Now my moms are great too, (that’s a fact)

But hav­ing a dad that cares, you can’t re­al­ly beat that

Big chat from less­er men who don’t show up

So y’all who are present, you all get full props

You’re stronger, smarter, braver than you recog­nise

We can­not de­ny the ma­jor role y’all play in our lives

We ap­pre­ci­ate the sac­ri­fice and self­less­ness

Don’t wor­ry about the mis­takes, Dad, you got this!

Whether you’re work­ing with your hands or lead a com­pa­ny

Ten doc­tor­ates or learned ex­pe­ri­en­tial­ly

The knowl­edge that you pos­sess sure is a ne­ces­si­ty

We love you, re­spect you, and ho­n­our you, Dad­dy

Cho­rus:

“Salute” to the fa­thers, kings on the throne

“Salute” to the priests prayer cov­er­ing your homes

“Salute” to the prophets speak­ing life over the fam

“Salute” to you men do­ing the best you can

[RE­PEAT]

Verse 2:

Now I’m so blessed, I get to be fa­thered by one of the best

A walk­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of God’s grace, Yes!

He makes the Chris­t­ian life look so ef­fort­less

Not per­fect, nah he’s fal­tered be­fore

Even he would ad­mit he got it wrong for sure

But when he saw his mis­takes, re­alised his flaws

He was quick to apol­o­gise, so ma­ture

Nev­er saw him drunk or high, my mom, he nev­er beat

Ask about him, his name is good in these streets

Help raise three kings, talk about a lega­cy

How you think our wives and chil­dren gon’ be?

So, work like it de­pends on you, pray like it de­pends on Him

Seek God first and you must win

Wise words from my dad­dy

For all you dad­dies

We love you dad­dy

(Bless ya!)

Salute to the fa­thers

kings on the throne

Cho­rus: (x2)