Beloved, award-winning gospel singer LaShun Pace has passed away, her management team confirmed. She was 60 years old.
Pace got her start performing with Grammy-nominated gospel group The Anointed Pace Sisters along with her sisters Duranice, Phyllis, June, Melonda, Dejuaii, Leslie, Latrice, and Lydia. Duranice Pace passed away in January 2021 and their mother Bettie Ann Pace in 2020.
Larry Reid Live was the first to break the news of LaShun's passing.
“We have lost one of the baddest sopranos to ever walk this earth,” he tweeted Monday. “LaShun Pace one of the lead singers of The Pace Sisters has passed. The Pace Sisters recently lost their sister songbird Duranice Pace and Mom Pastor Betty Pace. Pray for them and all of us who will mourn this loss.”
Pace had been on dialysis for several years and was awaiting a kidney. She died of organ failure according to her family.
African Americans are almost four times as likely as Whites to develop kidney failure. While African Americans make up about 13 percent of the population, they account for 35 percent of the people with kidney failure in the United States.
Dialysis is a treatment for people whose kidneys are failing. When you have kidney failure, your kidneys don't filter blood the way they should. As a result, wastes and toxins build up in your bloodstream. Dialysis does the work of your kidneys, removing waste products and excess fluid from the blood.
African Americans tend to have more risk factors for kidney disease than most other groups.
The risk factors include:
- diabetes
- obesity
- a family history of diabetes or kidney disease
- high blood pressure
It is important to note that racism in medicine and structural medicine may both contribute to the higher prevalence of these risk factors among African American people.
The evangelist and singer-songwriter was best known for her song "I Know I've Been Changed".
Born Tarrian LaShun Pace, the Atlanta native first emerged on the music scene in the early ’70s as a solo act but later joined her sisters. As a solo act, she was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2007.
Her debut album, He Lives – which featured her best-known song “I Know I’ve Been Changed” — reached No. 2 on Billboard’s gospel charts in 1990. In 1996, her single “Act Like You Know” became her second big hit and, in fact, became a TikTok trend in February 2022.
Pace also had a brief appearance as the Angel of Mercy in the 1992 Steve Martin movie “Leap of Faith” and was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2007.
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The follow-up song Shekinah Glory, appeared in1993. Three years later in 1996, Pace returned with Wealthy Place and a well-known song “Act Like You Know” featuring Karen Clark Sheard from the legendary Clark Sisters. In addition to successive releases including 1998's Just Because God Said It, she also enjoyed a career as an actress, most notably co-starring as the Angel of Mercy in the 1992 Steve Martin film Leap of Faith.
In 2003, Pace released an autobiography entitled For My Good But For His Glory in which she discussed a wide range of topics, including the death of her first-born daughter, Xenia who died of a heart attack. Xenia Pace had an enlarged heart.
LaShun Pace was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2007. She was to attend the official presentation ceremony with many guests to be formally inducted, but became ill and unable to attend. In 2009, LaShun was nominated for Urban Performer of the Year in the Visionary Awards. Winners were to be announced live during the 2009 Christian Music Hall of Fame Awards Show on November 14, 2009.