Israel & New Breed.

Israel Houghton was born in Oceanside, California, in 1971 and began recording in 1997 with “Whisper It Loud.” The brand that defines him, however, came with Israel & New Breed: the band and worship team with which he has spent more than two decades bringing together churches of different languages, cultures, and generations.

It started live: “Nueva Generación” and “New Season” (2001) and the studio with “Real” (2002). Then came “Live from Another Level” (2004), “Alive in South Africa” (2005), “A Deeper Level” (2007), “The Power of One” (2009), “Love God. Love People.” (2010), “Jesus at the Center” (2012), and “Covered: Alive in Asia” (2015). From that season come songs still sung in services across the continent: “Friend of God,” “Again I Say Rejoice,” “Not Forgotten,” “Say So,” and “The Power of One (Change the World).”

His trophy case holds eight Grammy Awards, and at the Dove Awards he has been winning since 2005 — from “Again I Say Rejoice” and “Live From Another Level” — through “Coritos de Fuego,” the Spanish-language song of the year in 2025, alongside Unified Sound. In February 2026 “Coritos, Vol. 1” took the Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album and became the first Spanish-language album to win that category, something the project had also achieved as the first Hispanic album nominated. The album had previously competed at the 2025 Latin Grammys, and at the 57th edition of the Doves, to be presented on October 6, 2026, Israel & New Breed is again nominated for “DIGNO” (by Nate Diaz with Aaron Moses and Israel Houghton) and for “Coritos, Vol. 1” as Spanish-language album of the year.

His sound crosses gospel, soul, pop, and Latin rhythms, and his most recent bet is the “Coritos” saga (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, 2025): taking the short choruses that Hispanic churches sing by heart and giving them big arrangements, with a live band and huge choirs. Between tours — the most recent, 'Til the Whole World Knows, with dates in Asia and North America in 2026 — he keeps holding to the same idea he started with: that worship should not be confined to a single language.