Artists Raise Their Voices to Abolish Modern Day Slavery

|PIC1|The Music Inspired By The Motion Picture Amazing Grace soundtrack, which released in January, is being used as a vehicle through which top artists can raise their voice in a social justice campaign to abolish modern day slavery.

Partnering with The Amazing Change and the Geneva Global Fund to help abolish modern day slavery, the recording features, "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)," as the theme song to raise funds for this cause.

The song includes a new bridge to the classic hymn written by 2006 two-GRAMMY nominee and the Gospel Music Association's Artist of the Year, Chris Tomlin. Tomlin also performs the song live in concert, sharing with his audiences the hope provided by The Amazing Change and exhorting them to "be the amazing change."

"What this movie [Amazing Grace] shows is the truth that every life matters and that you can make a difference right where you are," says Tomlin. "That's the amazing thing about God. He takes ordinary people and does extraordinary things with them."

Although slavery today is illegal around the world, National Geographic estimates there are still 27 million slaves in the world working in rice mills, brick kilns, on plantations, in brothels and in other places where human dignity is stripped in the name of greed and oppression. Remarkably, some estimate that more people are enslaved today than existed in the entire Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

After hearing about the plight of people in modern day slavery, GRAMMY, Dove and Stellar Award winning Gospel artist Smokie Norful, who sings "Were You There?" on the "Inspired By" soundtrack, responds, "That is alarming to me, it appals me, it upsets me to no end, but ultimately where it moves me to is a place where I have to ask both myself and God, 'What can I do.' I think that people first of all must be educated and informed on the issue because there is a lot more work to be done. We have to figure out, where is our place in that work."

"Hearing a number like that, 27 million people in modern day slavery, my first impression was shock, followed quickly by embarrassment that I was so unaware," adds two-time GMA Award-winning Female Vocalist of the Year, Nichole Nordeman, who sings "Just As I Am" on the "Inspired By" CD. "We are so tempted to just get apathetic and comfortable and carve these little niches and spaces in our lives. I hope that this film and this soundtrack promote awareness first and then activism."


The Amazing Change was formed by Bristol Bay Productions and inspired by the feature film Amazing Grace, which is the story of William Wilberforce. The campaign uses the story of Wilberforce and his friends, who worked together 200 years ago to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire, to raise up a new generation of modern day activists.