LaShun Pace never chased a platinum plaque or a pop crossover. She built her career inside church sanctuaries, revival tents, and gospel radio, and by the time she passed away in March 2022, her estimated net worth sat between $1.5 million and $2.5 million.
That number alone does not explain much. LaShun Pace earned it across four decades of touring, recording, acting, and preaching, often while managing serious health struggles that most celebrity profiles skip over. This article walks through exactly how she built that wealth, where the estimates come from, how her earnings compare to other gospel artists, and what her financial story actually reveals about life as a gospel singer in America.
Early Life: A House That Only Sang Church Music
Tarrian LaShun Pace was born on September 6, 1961, in Atlanta, Georgia. She was the fifth of ten children born to Pastor Murphy J. Pace and Bettie Ann Pace, and the family lived in a small Atlanta community called Poole Creek.
The Pace household followed strict Church of God in Christ (COGIC) tradition. Secular music was not allowed inside the home, and even television access was limited. Every one of the ten Pace children could sing, but LaShun’s voice stood out early, a soaring soprano that neighbors and church members noticed before she ever touched a professional stage.
She attended Walter F. George High School, now known as South Atlanta High School, and graduated in 1979. There was no music conservatory in her background and no formal vocal training. Her education came from choir stands, Sunday services, and family harmony sessions that doubled as rehearsal.
LaShun Pace Career: From Revival Tours to Billboard No. 2
LaShun Pace’s professional career began in her teenage years and eventually produced Billboard chart placements, film credits, and a body of work that gospel radio still plays today.
The Road Before the Record Deal
LaShun started singing professionally in the mid-1970s, well before any label showed interest. She toured with Reverend Gene Martin, her uncle, and his Action Revival Team, learning how to hold a room during live revival services rather than a recording booth.
In 1986, she joined The Edwin Hawkins Singers, a relationship that lasted until her death in 2022. That 36-year run gave her large-ensemble experience and connected her to some of the most respected names in contemporary gospel.
In 1988, she recorded “In the House of the Lord” with Dr. Jonathan Greer and the Cathedral of Faith Church of God in Christ Choirs for Savoy Records. That project caught the label’s attention, and Savoy signed her as a solo artist shortly afterward.
The Solo Breakthrough
LaShun Pace released her debut solo album, “He Lives,” in 1990. The album reached number two on the Billboard Gospel Albums chart and introduced her signature song, “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” a track that remains a staple in Black church services today.
The album earned her the Stellar Award for New Artist of the Year in 1992. From there, she kept a steady release schedule:
- “Shekinah Glory” (1993)
- “A Wealthy Place” (1996), featuring “Act Like You Know” with Karen Clark Sheard
- “Just Because God Said It” (1998), which won her the Stellar Award for Traditional Female Vocalist of the Year
- “God Is Faithful” (2001)
- “It’s My Time” (2005)
- “Complete” (2007), a Dove Award nominee for Traditional Gospel Album of the Year
- “Reborn” (2011)
Her later singles, including “By Your Word” (2014), “Joy” (2019), and “The Spirit” (2021), kept her active on gospel radio right up until her passing.
The Anointed Pace Sisters
Alongside her solo work, LaShun sang lead with her eight sisters in The Anointed Pace Sisters, a group that formed in the late 1980s after years of performing together in church and local talent shows. The group released seven albums, including “U-Know” (1992), which also reached number two on the Billboard Gospel Albums chart and featured collaborations with The Winans.
The Anointed Pace Sisters earned Grammy nominations and multiple Stellar Award nods over the years. In 2015, the group received the BMI Trailblazers of Gospel Music Award. LaShun was widely recognized as the group’s signature lead voice, the one fans waited for during every performance.
Film and Stage
LaShun Pace stepped outside music in 1992, co-starring as the Angel of Mercy in the Steve Martin film “Leap of Faith.” It remains her best-known screen credit and a rare gospel-to-Hollywood crossover for an artist who otherwise stayed rooted in ministry work.
Playwright and filmmaker Tyler Perry later named one of his early stage productions after her hit song “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” a nod to how deeply that single had embedded itself in Black church and theater culture.
Later Career and TikTok
In 2007, LaShun was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame, though illness kept her from attending the ceremony in person. She continued releasing music through the 2010s, and in early 2022, her 1996 song “Act Like You Know” unexpectedly went viral on TikTok.
According to her sister Lydia Pace, LaShun was thrilled by the resurgence and had already started working on new music and discussing a potential label deal. She passed away just weeks later, before she could finish that chapter.
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LaShun Pace Net Worth: What the Money Actually Looks Like
There is no official, court-filed estate valuation for LaShun Pace, and gospel labels rarely disclose sales or royalty figures. Based on her album chart history, decades of touring, acting income, publishing royalties, and post-2022 streaming growth, a net worth range of $1.5 million to $2.5 million is the most defensible estimate available. Most published figures cluster around $2 million to $2.5 million, and this article treats that midpoint as the honest, evidence-based answer rather than a single exact number.
How the Money Actually Works
Gospel artists rarely earn like pop stars, even with a Billboard chart history. LaShun Pace’s income came from several smaller streams rather than one dominant source:
- Album sales and Billboard chart royalties, from both her solo catalog and Anointed Pace Sisters releases
- Live performances, including church revivals, gospel concerts, and denominational conventions, which historically pay a set honorarium rather than a percentage of ticket sales
- Songwriting and publishing royalties, since she wrote or co-wrote much of her own catalog
- Acting income, primarily from her 1992 role in “Leap of Faith”
- Book sales, from her 2003 autobiography, “For My Good But For His Glory”
- Streaming royalties, which grew sharply after “Act Like You Know” went viral on TikTok in 2022 and again as her catalog reached new listeners after her death
Uncomfortable Truth
A Billboard number two placement sounds impressive, but gospel album sales never translated into pop-level paydays, even in the genre’s strongest sales years. Church honorariums, not stadium tours, made up a large share of her income for most of her career. At the same time, she was managing serious and expensive health conditions, including years of kidney dialysis, that most net worth estimates never factor into the picture at all. A gospel legend’s financial story and a gospel legend’s medical story are almost never the same size.
Unanswered Question
No public source has ever confirmed LaShun Pace’s actual estate value, her outstanding medical costs at the time of her death, or how her assets were divided among her family. Every net worth figure in circulation, including the one in this article, is an estimate built from career history and public chart data, not a verified financial record.
Methodology Transparency
This estimate draws on Billboard chart positions, Wikipedia’s documented discography and award history, contemporaneous news coverage of her career and death, and standard industry knowledge of how gospel artists are typically paid. It does not rely on tax filings, probate records, or any statement from the Pace family, because none of those documents are publicly available. Readers should treat this range, like every gospel artist net worth figure online, as an educated estimate rather than a confirmed fact.
LaShun Pace Net Worth in Context: Peer Comparison
Gospel net worth figures vary widely depending on crossover success, touring longevity, and whether an artist built a business beyond music. Here is how LaShun Pace’s estimated wealth compares to other well-known gospel artists, based on widely cited industry estimates:
| Artist | Estimated Net Worth |
| LaShun Pace | $1.5 million to $2.5 million |
| Yolanda Adams | $6 million |
| Dorinda Clark-Cole | $6 million to $9 million |
| CeCe Winans | $8 million |
| Kirk Franklin | $8.5 million |
| Karen Clark Sheard | $10 million |
The gap is not a reflection of talent. LaShun Pace never had a major secular crossover hit, a syndicated television show, or a long-running solo brand deal, all factors that pushed other gospel artists into higher wealth brackets. Her earnings stayed almost entirely inside traditional gospel channels: church circuits, gospel radio, and denominational touring, which simply pay less than mainstream music or media crossovers.
Personal Life: Faith, Loss, and Five Years on a Machine
LaShun Pace married Edward Rhodes, a Georgia-based minister, in 1988. He managed her career along with The Anointed Pace Sisters and connected her to the Hawkins Family, a relationship that shaped much of her early solo success. The couple had two daughters, Xenia and Aarion, before divorcing in 1993 following alleged affairs.
In February 2001, LaShun’s oldest daughter, Xenia, died suddenly of a heart attack at age 11. LaShun later described this loss as the darkest period of her life in her 2003 autobiography, “For My Good But For His Glory.” She credited her faith, and her own song “Just Because God Said It,” with helping her survive the grief.
Her health struggles continued for years afterward. She survived a ruptured esophagus, a cancer diagnosis, and long-term complications from diabetes. In her final five years, she underwent regular kidney dialysis while waiting for a transplant that never came. She died of organ failure on March 21, 2022, at age 60, just weeks after “Act Like You Know” found a new audience on TikTok.
She was preceded in death by her sister and fellow group member, Duranice Pace, who passed away in January 2021. She is survived by seven of her nine sisters and her daughter, Aarion Rhodes, who is also a singer and has spoken about carrying her mother’s music forward.
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Philanthropy
LaShun Pace’s charitable impact rarely came through a formal foundation or a named nonprofit. It came through decades of unpaid or low-paid ministry work: revival appearances, hospital and prison ministry visits, and testimony-based encouragement for people facing grief, illness, or financial hardship.
As an ordained evangelist within the Church of God in Christ, she used her platform to support struggling churches and smaller gospel artists, often performing at community events without the fees a singer of her stature could have commanded elsewhere. Her openness about losing a child and living with chronic illness also became its own form of giving back, offering comfort to fans navigating similar pain long before “mental health awareness” became a mainstream conversation in gospel circles.
LaShun Pace Net Worth Legacy: The Voice That Outlived Its Era
LaShun Pace’s financial legacy did not stop growing when she died. Her catalog kept generating income through streaming royalties, and “Act Like You Know” continued gaining new listeners on TikTok well after her passing, introducing 1990s gospel to an audience that was not alive when the song first released.
In 2025, the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses honored her posthumously with the Thomas A. Dorsey Lifetime Achievement Award, a recognition that placed her alongside gospel music’s most foundational figures. Her songs remain in regular rotation in church services, and her signature track continues to lend its title to stage productions and tribute performances.
Her real legacy, though, was never only financial. It lived in a voice that turned personal tragedy, a broken marriage, a lost child, and years of dialysis, into music that helped strangers get through their own hardest days.
Conclusion
LaShun Pace’s estimated $1.5 million to $2.5 million net worth tells only part of her story. She built that wealth without a pop crossover, without a reality show, and without a corporate sponsorship deal, relying instead on four decades of gospel albums, revival tours, and a voice that Billboard, Hollywood, and eventually TikTok all took notice of. Her true legacy sits in church pews and streaming playlists alike, proof that a life devoted to ministry can still leave behind a lasting financial and spiritual inheritance.
FAQs
What was LaShun Pace’s net worth when she died?
Estimates place her net worth between $1.5 million and $2.5 million at the time of her death in March 2022, built primarily through gospel music and touring.
How did LaShun Pace make her money?
She earned income from album sales, live gospel performances, songwriting royalties, her role in “Leap of Faith,” her autobiography, and streaming royalties.
What caused LaShun Pace’s death?
She died of organ failure on March 21, 2022, after undergoing kidney dialysis for five years while waiting for a transplant.
Was LaShun Pace married?
She married minister Edward Rhodes in 1988, and the couple divorced in 1993 after alleged affairs.
Did LaShun Pace have children?
She had two daughters, Xenia, who died in 2001 at age 11, and Aarion Rhodes, who survives her and also sings.
What is LaShun Pace’s most famous song?
“I Know I’ve Been Changed” from her 1990 debut album “He Lives” is her signature song, though “Act Like You Know” gained a second wave of fame on TikTok in 2022.
Is The Anointed Pace Sisters still active?
The group has continued performing with surviving members after losing both LaShun Pace and her sister Duranice Pace, though its lineup and activity have changed significantly since its 1990s peak.
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