"Pray" is a song by Swiss artist

DJ BoBo Peter René Baumann (born 5 January 1968), better known under his stage name DJ BoBo, is a Swiss singer-songwriter, rapper, dancer, and music producer. He has sold 14 million records worldwide and has released 12 studio albums as well as several ...

, released in September 1996 as the lead single from his third album, ''World in Motion'' (1996). It features vocals by American singers Lori Glori and

Jocelyn Brown Jocelyn Lorette Brown (born November 25, 1950), sometimes credited as Jocelyn Shaw, is an American R&B and dance singer. Although she has only one ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart entry solely in her name, she has an extensive background in the musi ...

, and the choir United Spirits. Successful in Europe, it peaked at number two in Finland and Switzerland, number three in France and Germany, number five in Hungary and number six in Austria. On the

Eurochart Hot 100 The European Hot 100 Singles was compiled by '' Billboard'' and ''Music & Media'' magazine from March 1984 until December 2010. The chart was based on national singles sales charts in 17 European countries: Austria, Belgium (two charts separately ...

, the single reached number 13 in October 1996. It sold to

Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

in Germany.

Critical reception

Pan-European magazine ''

Music & Media ''Music & Media'' was a pan-European magazine for radio, music and entertainment. It was published for the first time in 1984 as ''Eurotipsheet'', but in 1986 it changed name to ''Music & Media''. It was originally based in Amsterdam, but later ...

'' wrote, "An excellent combination of a fast radio friendly beat,

Eurodance Euro-Dance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG, Euro-electronica or Euro) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Europe. It combines many elements of hip hop, techno, Hi-NRG, house music, and Euro-Disco. This ...

raps and an impressive

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

choir. It's already doing well in the GSA countries, but this should charm EHR programmers everywhere."

Music video

The

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

for "Pray" was shot in autumn of 1996 and was directed by Bernd-Peter Rothfuss.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Jocelyn Brown 1996 singles 1996 songs DJ BoBo songs English-language Swiss songs Jocelyn Brown songs Songs written by Axel Breitung Songs written by DJ BoBo ZYX Music singles