Yes (Steven Malcolm feat. for KING + COUNTRY & KB)

Steven Malcolm has been open about where “Yes” comes from. “God took a fatherless kid who, because of where I came from and what I had been through, always felt a sense of unworthiness,” he said when the single came out on July 11, 2025. “You’re telling me I’m worthy to be saved?! YES!” In other coverage he added that his father was deported to Jamaica when he was nine, “leaving me yearning for identity,” and that at 19 he stepped into a hip-hop church and found “God can use anybody and anything for His glory.” The song is nominated for Rap/Hip Hop Recorded Song of the Year at the 57th GMA Dove Awards, whose ceremony is scheduled for October 6.

Everything about the concept is right for the material. The single blends hip-hop energy with an anthemic worship chorus – KB handles the rap side and for KING + COUNTRY the harmonies – and the title is an answer to a question the listener has usually been asked in a less friendly voice. A one-word chorus is the kind of hook a congregation can pick up in a single pass, and putting it in the mouth of someone whose story is about being told the opposite gives it real weight. It is also a cousin of the hymn theme this week: “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be” is Robinson’s statement of the same idea in 18th-century English.

The limitation is the same as the strength. A testimony that arrives with its conclusion in the title has little room for surprise, and a song whose refrain is a single word will live or die on whether the verses supply the doubt that makes the answer matter. Malcolm’s account of the fatherless kid is specific enough to earn it. The song is solid and sincere rather than transformative.

7.5/10 – a personal, well-aimed testimony single whose one-word hook does what it is built to do.

Hero image: “Yes” single artwork, Steven Malcolm, for KING + COUNTRY, and KB. Used under fair use for editorial commentary.