Sherwin Gardner is a pioneer in Caribbean gospel music. He was one of the first artists to record gospel music with Reggae, Soca and Dancehall rhythms. He rose to the top of his field with songs such as “I Worship You,” “Leaning” and “He Died For Me” which spent 21 weeks at No. 1 on the Caribbean gospel charts. Gardner is now expanding his ministry to the world with his sixteenth album, “Greater” (Flow Masters/Tyscot), which features the U.S. Billboard Top 20 Gospel Airplay chart smash, “Because of You.”

“Because of You” is Gardner’s testimony. In 1979, doctors feared his mother, Rev. Merle Gardner, might have cancer. They subjected her to a battery of tests, including a barium meal to diagnose the issue. In the process, it was discovered that she was 20 weeks pregnant. She was advised to abort the baby because the radiation from the procedure would cripple or kill the child. Rev. Gardner says that God told her not to abort the baby, so she carried him to term in spite of the opposition from the medical team.

“That’s part of my backbone to stay faithful to Christ because He was faithful to me even from my birth,” says Gardner who was born with no complications on February 14, 1979 in Arima, Trinidad & Tobago. He hails from a family of evangelists. Aside from his mother, his uncle, Kennedy Patterson, is a gospel artist and his grandfather, Ivan Patterson, was a Bishop in the New Testament church. Gardner began singing in churches at the age of five, and recorded his first album, “Power in the Name,” when he was 17.

Over the years, Gardner earned nine Marlin Awards (The Caribbean’s answer to the Stellar Gospel Music Award) and he is the first non-Jamaican to earn Song of the Year. He’s also earned the COTT Award (Copyright Organization of Trinidad & Tobago, the island’s prestigious performing rights organization) as Gospel Songwriter of the Year two years in a row.

Gardner’s recorded sixteen albums of his own and has produced dozens of other artists. Gardner has shared stages with the likes of CeCe Winans and Israel Houghton. He has also collaborated with the likes of Jonathan Nelson, Papa San, Christafari, Monty G and DJ Nicholas. The “Greater” album features cameos by Deitrick Haddon and Todd Dulaney. Gardner is the minister of worship at St. John’s Pentecostal House of Restoration Ministries in Antigua and Barbuda in the West Indies.