Pat Wright: Living a Total Experience—Overcoming Racism, Patriarchy, and Jealousy to Share Her Gift

Emerging Future Podcast

Pat Wright is a global musical legend. Growing up in Carthage, Texas, she started singing at age three in her father's church. After making her way to Seattle, she lived further into her calling as a singer and choir director and started the Total Gospel Experience Choir. Overcoming many challenges, Pat and her choir traveled the globe singing to diverse audiences sharing the heart and soul of gospel music. Pat Wright has sung, performed, and recorded with some of the world's most famous artists like Dave Matthews, Ray Charles, Michael Bolton, Pete Seeger, and Jimi Hendrix. She has sung for President Carter, President Clinton, and President Obama. She has been nicknamed "The Idol-breeder" because of the three Total Experience Gospel Choir members that have been participants on the hit TV show, American Idol. She is a frequent national anthem singer at many professional sporting events including the NBA, MLB, NFL, and MLS. The list goes on... Her passion for singing runs deep, and her love for God and humanity runs even deeper. In this conversation you'll get to hear from an authentic and honest Pat Wright, who shares her struggles and triumphs with grace and humility, and with fire and grit. As a women she found herself immersed in a patriarchal Black Church community that limited her and the choir's potential to share their gift. This ultimately lead to a more expansive journey, one that took the choir to 28 countries and 38 states impacting countless lives the world-over. There is something extremely unique and profound about Pat Wright's gift. She's not just a singer and a director. She is a conduit for love, justice and pace, and brings it all to and through her choir with the purpose of sharing it freely with the world. Pat's voice leading the Total Experience Gospel Choir is not something that can be explained or simply heard— it is something that must be experienced, and for me and many others, it has been truly transformative!