Hamilton's first attempt to 'Let It Rain'

"After I became a Christian I started singing at my church, Boulevard Church of the Nazarene," said Abigail Hamilton of her humble beginnings as a gospel singer.

"My father always used to sing to me and I always liked music from a tender age," she added.

Abigail has been on the music scene professionally from the age of 17, when she began to do backup singing for established artistes such as Keron Ennis and Goddy Goddy. She migrated to Brooklyn, New York, in 2009 where she signed with Adamah8Records, and has recently put the finishing touches on her debut album, Let It Rain, which was released in August 2010.

Despite the thoughts of most that gospel artistes have a hard time getting their voices heard by the public, Abigail says, "It's not hard doing gospel. It all depends on the message you're bringing across. It's not as recognised as secular music but it all depends on your content and your creativity."

The budding artiste has performed in Canada, all over New York, Queens, Bronx and, more recently, at the Highest Praise gospel concert this summer with international gospel artistes such as Shirley Caeser and Mary Mary.

Most of her songs have received good rotation on radio stations in New York and in Jamaica and she has been featured in two popular gospel magazines based in Georgia, holyculture.net and dasouth.com.

On Friday, a soft launch party was held for Hamilton at The Boulevard Church of the Nazarene. The official album launch will be in Brooklyn on September 19.

Abigail thanks her manager, Linton Atkinson, and her immediate family for the support they have provided.

With the album, she expects to do big things, as she explained, "I hope to do more travelling, to go all over the world with this album, England, different states in the US [United States] and to maximise my fan base in Jamaica."

teacher

However, music is not her only interest as Abigail is currently in college in the US studying early childhood education. She would like to become a teacher.

Her time she says, is always organised and music does not affect her other endeavours, as she does school in the morning and makes the trip to the studio at nights.

"It's not strenuous because music is always scheduled around my time," she said.

"I hope everyone who listens to it [the album] will be ministered to by it, and I hope it will reach far because it has a pretty good messages. I hope it will change lives. I want to take it to the four corners of the earth, to be well received and to sell at least one million copies."

Her manager admits that although challenges were present, they are now on the road to success.

"It's challenging sometimes because this is her debut album. We have to give her studio training, performance training and all that. The good thing is that she's receptive and has grown over the past years. Right now she's even being likened to artistes such as Mary Mary and Yolanda Adams," said Atkinson.

According to the manager, Hamilton is a crowd favourite almost everywhere she performs.

"They really love the songs so the crowd response is normally good. Brooklyn fans love I Won't Move and I Got A Man and Still Working On Me are big in Jamaica," she said.

Success has been knocking on her door in recent times as she was recently nominated for two awards. At the Kingdom Choice Awards held in October, she was nominated for Caribbean Gospel Artiste of the Year, and in the Ensound awards in Texas last month she was again nominated for Best Female Gospel Artiste of the Year.