Kim Walker-Smith to Release First Solo Album Since Leaving Jesus Culture

Published: April 3, 2024

Kim Walker-Smith to Release First Solo Album Since Leaving Jesus Culture

By Movieguide® Contributor

Kim Walker-Smith explained why she left Jesus Culture and how the last couple of years have built towards her upcoming solo album.

“One of the biggest changes that’s affected everything is I left Jesus Culture. And it’s always kind of a hard and big thing to talk about. When you say something as big as that, people are always like, ‘Oh no,’” Walker-Smith told the Relevant podcast. “People kind of assume the worst and kind of wonder what’s going on. And I get it; it’s really hard.”

“I was with Jesus Culture for 21 years, and it’s kind of hard to wrap your head around that, and honestly, I thought that’s where I would be, I don’t know, probably forever. Maybe until I retired,” Walker-Smith continued. “But we had been feeling for quite a while that God was going to move us out and into something new and something different, and I honestly tried to ignore that for quite a while.”

It wasn’t until Walker-Smith started having dreams telling her to move on to something new that she finally listened to God and left the ministry that she had been a part of for so long.

“Finally it was just undeniable, and we made the big and really hard decision to leave and transfer out,” she said. “We left with sadness, you know, sadness to leave everybody in our community of so many years but also just with excitement of what was ahead.”

After being gone for three years, Walker-Smith is now ready to release new music that has emerged from this time of transition and new beginnings. She approached this album in a new way, allowing the songs to spring out of her spirit rather than writing for a specific church or movement.

“All of these songs have just been birthed, I guess, out of these last three years of me kind of processing what I’ve been walking through and doing and looking ahead to the future,” Walker-Smith explained. “The theme is [that] these songs are really these prayers that came out of the wilderness. That’s how I’ve felt the past three years.”

“I’ve felt like I’ve been in the wilderness, and it’s not been a negative thing; it’s actually been really good and really a blessing, and really, I’ve drawn much closer to God in this time,” she continued. “These songs have been the prayers that have come out of there.”

“There’s been a lot of confession, a lot of repentance in these songs, a lot of just wanting to be honest,” she added. “And I think before you can start pointing your finger at what is not right in the world, in the church or anywhere else, you have to start with you own self, your own heart…And so, I would say that is probably a theme in these songs: me examining my own heart and are there things that should be shifted and changed inside of me.”

In February, she released “Boxes,” her first song in several years.

“The message of ‘Boxes’ summarized the last three years for me,” explained Walker-Smith. “I could feel God calling me to step out of my comfort zone and to chase His presence. This required me to move outside of the boxes I kept myself in and even the boxes I felt others would hold me to. When you don’t want to disappoint anyone, you end up putting others ahead of God, which is just plain wrong. The more I boldly climbed out of those boxes, the more the Lord would meet me there and fill me with boldness. Fear of man was replaced with fear of God, and I’ve been experiencing greater freedom and joy because of it.”

Her album, “Under the Big Sky,” will release this summer.