June 3, 2025
Kirk Franklin is teaming up with Insignia Assets on a Black-owned media merger that’s looking to transform the media landscape.
Kirk Franklin is heavy on the “For Us By Us” with the launch of a new business venture powered by an all-Black ownership team that’s looking to reshape the media landscape.
Grammy-winning gospel icon Kirk Franklin has joined forces with Insignia Assets, a new entertainment venture founded by Norman Gyam and Jonathan Jay.
The partnership, announced on June 2, merges Franklin’s Fo Yo Soul Recordings and CLTRE Lab with Insignia’s broad portfolio, which spans recorded music, publishing, television, touring, film, and live events. As part of the deal, Franklin will take on an active leadership role as chief of creative services for Insignia Assets.
“It’s Black-owned. It’s Black business,” Franklin tells BLACK ENTERPRISE. “It’s from the culture for the culture. It’s men of color that are unifying their vision, their assets, their resources, their gifts, their talents to move and push the agenda of inspiration and aspiration forward through the medium of entertainment.”
“We want to seize. We want to engage. We want to transform. We want to communicate so that we can have a clear conversation of the bigger things of life, the bigger purpose of life, to be able to point people vertically while creating and curating horizontally,” he adds.
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To start the new venture, Franklin will drop a new single, “Do It Again,” on June 6, three days before accepting the BET Ultimate Icon Award at the 2025 BET Awards. On Sunday, June 15, Franklin’s media company, CLTRE Lab, will team up with Insignia Assets’ 3 Diamonds Entertainment to produce Den of Kings, a dinner conversation series hosted by Franklin.
The premiere episode, centering on the theme of “fatherhood” and featuring guests D.C. Young Fly, Kountry Wayne, Lou Young, and Devale Ellis, will debut on Franklin’s YouTube channel in honor of Father’s Day. Modeled around Franklin’s love for communing over fine dining and good conversation, the gospel star brings together a group of Black men in comedy for meaningful conversations about life.
“It’s funny, it’s engaging. And we’re not there to preach. It’s not a preaching conversation. We’re listening, we’re laughing, we’re crying, we’re struggling, we have the tension, we are debating,” Franklin said of the first episode. “It is a beautiful moment to see Black men in this space. The level of vulnerability that you’re going to see from this moment is going to be impressive.”
Teaming up with Insignia Assets is a big step within the space of Black-owned media. As a Black-owned and self-funded entertainment company, Insignia boasts a diverse music portfolio that includes Christian and gospel labels Tribl Records, Maverick City Music, and Franklin’s Fo Yo Soul Recordings, along with the R&B label Platform Sounds.
Photo credit: Rob Ector
The company also operates several other divisions, including Undivided Entertainment for touring and live events; 3 Diamonds Entertainment for television and film production; and the Icho Group, which serves as the marketing powerhouse behind the multifaceted enterprise. As part of the agreement, 3 Diamonds Entertainment will serve as the production partner for select scripted and unscripted projects from Franklin’s CLTRE Lab, offering both production services and funding to bring original storytelling to life across multiple formats.
“We’ve worked with Kirk for some time now—from the 2022 release of the multi-GRAMMY®-winning collaborative album, Kingdom, to producing sold-out arena tours with him consecutively over the past few years,” said Norman Gyam, co-founder and CEO of Insignia Assets. “Today, we’re thrilled to fortify and deepen our partnership by welcoming Kirk to our executive team and by charting a course for the future with him from recorded music to touring, film/TV to digital media, and more. We are collectively very proud of this moment.”
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