INTERVIEW: Gospel Royalty Kierra Sheard Reveals The Inspiration Behind Her New Memoir, ‘Big, Bold & Beautiful’
Grammy-award and Stellar award-winning singer, actress, and entrepreneur Kierra “KiKi” Sheard is living her best life. She recently released the deluxe version of her #1 Billboard charting Gospel self-titled album Kierra (she de-throned Kanye West). Additionally, the powerhouse gospel vocalist, also known to the world as “The Vocal Bible of Gospel Music” and daughter of gospel legend Karen Clark-Sheard of The Clark Sisters, is now a published author.
Released on April 13, her memoir "Big, Bold, and Beautiful:Owning the Woman God Made You to Be" is inspired by her own journal entries compiled as a form of therapy. In an interview with BET, Sheard talked about her journey to self-empowerment, body positivity, how her faith has shaped her and loving her whole self.
Sheard revealed that while she discovered a lot about herself during the writing process, she never intended to write a book and let others into her private thoughts, saying, “The book wasn’t intentional, It actually me journaling through life as a form of therapy. The things I learned about myself are I’m sensitive, I can be a bulldog, I don’t like confrontation, I’m very sensitive with vibes, I’m a family person, I’m a workaholic and I love serving people. I love seeing people win.”
Coming from a famous, church-going family, Sheard also talked about the pros and cons of being Gospel royalty.
“The pros are the blessings that you get naturally, to be able to sing. Music is my family… The cons come from the pressure of legacy that’s been established in the public eye.”
Sheard spoke about how her faith in God not only has sustained during quarantine, but it helped her manage the loss of her beloved nana, Willa Mae Sheard, who passed away from Covid-19 last April.
Find out how she did it, and what artists deliver a full dose of inspiration to her heart and soul (outside of her family, of course) in BET’s Instagram interview below.
The deluxe version of Kierra Sheard’s self-titled album, Kierra, is available now wherever music is sold and streamed; and Kierra Sheard’s debut book, "Big, Bold & Beautiful: Owing The Woman God Made You To Be" (Zonderkidz) is out now wherever books are sold.
