Not many people can say they went from being a successful hip-hop artist to becoming a pastor, but this rings true for Montell Jordan’s story. Most known for his mid-1990s bop, “This Is How We Do It,” Jordan was signed to Def Jams Records in 1995. Soon after, he dropped his first single, “This Is How We Do It,” the title track of his debut studio album. Credited as the first R&B single released off Def Jam, “This Is How We Do It” topped several worldwide charts, including the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and U.S. Rhythmic charts in America.
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It stayed at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks and has been certified platinum for sales north of one million copies. Though “This is How We Do It” is his most famous track, Jordan also had hits with “Let’s Ride” in 1998 and “Get it on Tonite” in 1999. He left Def Jam in 2003, which he commemorated by releasing Life After Def that same year. So what has he been up to since then?
Where is Montell Jordan Now?
Following the release of Life After Def, Jordan went on a musical hiatus, going 16 years before releasing his most recent album, Masterpeace, in 2019. In the meantime, he turned his attention to a higher purpose. In 2010, he became a worship leader at Victory World Church in Georgia near Atlanta. He and his wife Kristin Jordan now run Master Peace Church, a virtual church based in Dacula, Georgia, that they co-founded and are the lead pastors of.
“The beauty of how we get to that place is because of the years of doing music,” he told Vlad TV in 2022 about the church’s origins. He says that after he and his wife repaired their marriage, he left the music industry entirely to focus on ministry full-time, which is when he became a worship leader in Atlanta.
“I used to think music defined me and I learned that music doesn’t define me, I define music,” he describes the epiphany he had after leaving the business. “That’s when I really started to find who I was not based on other people telling me who I am, but based on God being the one who tells me who I am.”
Throughout his career, Jordan has also appeared in several films, beginning with a guest role as himself in The Nutty Professor in 1996, followed by The Fighting Temptations, the 2003 musical comedy starring Beyonce and Cuba Gooding Jr., where he made a cameo as the character of Mr. Johnson, and the 2015 film The List.
In 2022, he appeared on season eight of The Masked Singer disguised under the stage name Panther where he performed “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone. He was eliminated in the second round. In 2023, he was a cast member on, Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, a military training reality show on Fox, but was medically withdrawn in episode two.
Jordan can currently be seen on the small screen in an Uber One commercial singing a jingle about the food delivery service, set to the melody of “This Is How We Do It.”
(Photo by Des Willie/Redferns)
