GloRilla appears on Kirk Franklin’s new single “This Time,” released September 25, 2026. On her verse, the Memphis rapper calls herself a prayer warrior.
The song samples Mandrill’s 1972 record “Children of the Sun,” the same record Shawty Lo sampled on “Dey Know” in 2007. So the track carries two generations of Black music underneath a gospel vocal, which is a fitting place for GloRilla to stand.
“This Time” arrives ahead of Franklin’s double album “I Am What I Am,” out October 30, 2026. The album runs 14 songs, split between contemporary and traditional gospel.
This is the second time the two have worked together. GloRilla featured Franklin and Maverick City Music on “Rain Down on Me” from her debut album “Glorious.” That collaboration won the Dr. Bobby Jones Best Gospel/Inspirational Award at the 2025 BET Awards.
There is something worth naming here. Black women in rap are rarely allowed to be more than one thing at a time. You are either the one who talks her talk or the one who prays. GloRilla keeps refusing that split. She raps the way she raps, and she says the prayer out loud on the same record, and both are true.
Plenty of women in our pews and our group chats live exactly like that. They cuss on Friday and usher on Sunday, and God has not dropped them yet.
Gospel has been quietly opening its doors to rap for a while now. Franklin has spent three decades in that doorway, taking heat for drums that were too worldly and choirs that swung too hard, and outlasting most of the critics. Bringing in a rapper whose catalog is full of grown language is the same move he has always made, which is to meet people where they actually are.
For GloRilla, the timing matters too. She has talked publicly about her faith since her come up in Memphis, and her verse here hints at what she may call her next album. Whatever it turns out to be, she is putting the prayer part on record while the world is still watching the party part.
“This Time” is out now on streaming platforms. “I Am What I Am” follows October 30. If your Sunday morning playlist has been stuck for a while, this is a fair place to start it over.
