American urban contemporary gospel singer and songwriter, Anthony Jamar Brown, was born in October 1981 in Baltimore, Maryland. The church played a major part in Brown’s upbringing - he sang in the church choir and began playing piano at the age of three. Both his parents were involved in music - his mother sang and his father was a pastor who played the piano.
Come 2012, while Brown was Assistant Minister of Music at First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Maryland, he and his band Group TherAPy released their self-titled debut CD on Tyscot Records. The group was first created in 2000 and called Answered Prayers, which explains the capitalization in the name Group TherAPy. He had performed with the original group for three years, during 2006, 2007 and 2012 on BET's annual Celebration of Gospel and had also played a key role in major gospel albums including Maurette Brown-Clark's The Dream in 2007 and Stephen A. Hurd's Times of Refreshing in 2009.
The group’s debut album featured appearances by Brown-Clark and also by another gospel singer, VaShawn Mitchell and reached No. 130 on The Billboard 200, No. 3 on the Gospel Albums and No. 19 on the Independent Albums chart. An AllMusic review explained the album’s popularity, saying: “Brown puts his vocal-arrangement chops on full display throughout this contemporary gospel set, which bursts with uplifting spirit.”
In 2015 Group TherAPy released their album, Everyday Jesus, which included the hit song Worth. Describing his musical style to Deep Roots, Brown said: “It’s a balance between gospel, classical, jazz, even theatre. It is music wrapped up in the message of love and hope. I don’t like to classify it just as gospel or Christian music. I think it is just music, but the message behind it is definitely one of love and hope”.
