The WINANS are a Detroit gospel dynasty. Sal Solo asked Carvin Winans about yesterday, today and tomorrow.

You were criticised for allowing non-Christians to sing on your album.

"To me that's so limited, 'cos we set out to reach different people - the people who don't necessarily go to church - that's what the Winans is about. People who may not hear the gospel in church 'cos they're just not going. Yeah, you get criticism and on this Return album with (the non-Christian hip hop producer of "It's Time") Teddy Riley we got some big criticism - like "what are you guys doing?" But Teddy Riley's a human being and if you want to reach a Teddy Riley, you're gonna have to touch him and work with him. He's an incredible person, very talented, and when we did Michael Jackson - we worked on the 'Bad' album - they got on us about that, but in order to teach people, you have to befriend them - to be able to sit down and talk with them, and that's what we did. I'm not sayin' we reached all these people, but we definitely broke ground - they respect us, their ears are open and hopefully we'll reach a lot of them before it's over with. If you're scared to touch 'em you'll never reach 'em. I get kinda upset with the people in the church 'cos they feel that you don't need to be around them - but someone needed to be around me to get me into church, but evidently they've forgot about all that, so again they're just talkin but they ain't really sayin too much."

How did you come to choose Teddy Riley in the first place?

"We do a thing in the High Schools in Detroit called 'I Care' when we go to talk to the young kids, and one particular time we asked the kids about the particular rap artistes they liked, and when we mentioned Teddy Riley they just went nuts. So we wanted to get on the vehicle that would take us and spread us out to that audience and we did."

But a lot of Christian parents just don't approve of their children listening to rap

"I think so, because what parents don't realise is that the kids are going to listen to what they want to listen to - you may not allow it in your home which is fine, but if you don't' allow something in your home that is going to be tasteful to their ears then they are going to go out and listen to this negative rap - there's a lot of negative rap out there - so we have to put something that's going to be edible to their appetite. Parents should open up more to that sort of music."

Your Beatles medley in your live show where you take Beatles songs and transform them into gospel songs surprised a lot of people.

"They wrote some great songs (The Beatles) - talent is talent, you can't knock it. They had some great songs. We worked on it in the States for a little bit but we saved it so the first time we did it in England was in Birmingham."

What are your hopes and ambitions for the future?

"We're not even half way done with what we want to do because there are so many people who need to be reached and we feel that we have the music to reach them. The barriers will break even more to let people in this business know that gospel is a force to be reckoned with and it isn't a mainstream form of music. We want to make it more enjoyable for people to listen to and at the same time we're serious for them to be involved and to know that the message is that God is coming back and he's coming back soon. We want to reach as many people as we can, as soon as we can and at the same time not be denied the airplay that I think we deserve."