LaShun Pace never chased a record deal. She chased a calling. Yet by the time she passed away in 2022, her name had become one of the most searched topics in gospel music, and one of the most misunderstood in terms of money.
Most articles online repeat the same three or four sentences about her net worth without explaining where the figure comes from or what it actually means. This article does the opposite. It walks through her career decade by decade, breaks down exactly how a gospel artist earns money without a pop crossover, and answers the questions fans are actually typing into Google in 2026.
By the end, you will understand not just what LaShun Pace was worth, but why that number is one of the most honest examples of what a lifelong ministry career actually pays.
Early Life: A House That Only Sang Church Music
LaShun Pace was born Tarrian LaShun Pace on September 6, 1961, in Atlanta, Georgia. Some official artist pages list her birth date as September 7, 1961, a small discrepancy that has followed her biography for years without ever being corrected.
She was the fifth of ten children born to Pastor Murphy J. Pace and Bettie Ann Pace. The family was raised inside the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) tradition, and the household rules were strict:
- No secular radio
- Limited television access
- Music meant one thing only: church music
That environment could easily have limited a child’s exposure to the wider music industry. Instead, it did the opposite. With ten children constantly harmonizing at home, church, and revival meetings, the Pace household became an unofficial vocal training ground. LaShun later said her earliest and most important stage was never a concert hall. It was Sunday service.
LaShun Pace Career: From Revival Tours to Billboard No. 2
The Road Before the Record Deal
LaShun Pace’s professional life began in the mid 1970s, years before she ever signed to a label. She toured with Reverend Gene Martin and the Action Revival Team, traveling from church to church and learning how to hold a congregation with nothing but her voice.
By 1988, she recorded a vocal performance on “The House of the Lord” for Dr. Jonathan Greer and the Cathedral of Faith Choir’s album on Savoy Records. That single performance is what convinced Savoy to sign her as a solo artist, proving that in gospel music, a career can be launched from a single moment of raw talent rather than years of industry positioning.
The Solo Breakthrough
In 1990, LaShun Pace released her debut solo album, “He Lives.” The record featured her signature song, “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” and it climbed to number two on the Billboard gospel albums chart. That single peak defined the rest of her career. It gave her a hit that gospel radio still plays today and established her as one of the most powerful solo voices in the genre.
She followed with a run of solo albums that spanned nearly three decades:
- Shekinah Glory (1993)
- Wealthy Place (1996), featuring “Act Like You Know” with Karen Clark Sheard
- Just Because God Said It (1998)
- God Is Faithful (2001)
- It’s My Time (2005)
- Complete (2007)
- Reborn (2011)
- God Sent Me Tyrone (2017)
The Anointed Pace Sisters
While building her solo catalog, LaShun also formed The Anointed Pace Sisters in 1988 alongside eight of her siblings, including Duranice, Phyllis, June, Melonda, Dejuaii, Leslie, Latrice, and Lydia. The group earned both Stellar and Grammy nominations and released a string of albums including U-Know (1992), My Purpose (1995), Return (1996), and Access Granted (2009).
U-Know spent more than a year on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart and reached number two, matching the success LaShun found as a soloist. Very few gospel artists manage to build a successful solo career and a successful group career at the same time. LaShun did both, and both income streams overlapped for most of her adult life.
Film and Stage
In 1992, LaShun Pace stepped into acting, co-starring as the Angel of Mercy alongside Steve Martin in the Hollywood film Leap of Faith. It was a rare crossover moment for a gospel artist of her era, one that introduced her voice to audiences who had never set foot in a Black Pentecostal church.
She also released the single “There’s A Leak In This Old Building” in 2001, a song that became a staple in gospel choir repertoires for years afterward, and continued performing on gospel stage productions throughout the 2000s.
Later Career and TikTok
LaShun Pace was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2007 and was honored at the 16th Trailblazers of Gospel Music Awards in her hometown of Atlanta in 2015. She continued releasing music into her fifties, including 2017’s God Sent Me Tyrone.
Then, in February 2022, a live performance clip of “Act Like You Know,” featuring her sister Leslie, resurfaced on TikTok and went viral. It introduced her voice to a generation of listeners who had never heard her name, weeks before her death. That moment reshaped her posthumous earnings in a way almost nobody expected.
LaShun Pace Net Worth: What the Money Actually Looks Like
The honest figure: $1.5 million to $2.5 million
Based on her album chart history, decades of touring, royalty structures typical of gospel artists at her level, and her continued streaming revenue, LaShun Pace’s net worth is most reasonably estimated between $1.5 million and $2.5 million at the time of her passing in March 2022.
No official financial documents, court filings, or estate disclosures have ever confirmed an exact figure. Every number circulating online, including this one, is an educated estimate built from career markers rather than verified accounting.
How the Money Actually Works
Gospel artists rarely earn the way pop or hip hop artists do. There is no arena tour circuit, no major label marketing budget, and no streaming payout comparable to mainstream genres. Instead, LaShun Pace’s income likely came from a combination of smaller, steadier sources:
- Album sales across nine solo records and seven group albums
- Songwriting and publishing royalties
- Church and revival appearance fees, often called “love offerings” in gospel circles
- Concert and gospel stage production income
- Her 1992 acting role in Leap of Faith
- Her 2003 autobiography, For My Good But For His Glory
- Streaming royalties, which grew significantly after her 2022 TikTok resurgence
None of these income streams are individually massive. What made her financially stable was consistency across four decades, not a single windfall.
Uncomfortable Truth
A gospel career built entirely on ministry does not scale the way commercial music does. LaShun Pace never had a platinum album, never toured stadiums, and never signed a major crossover deal. Her net worth reflects steady, unglamorous work rather than a single career-defining payday, and that is precisely why the number sits in the low millions rather than the tens of millions sometimes claimed by less careful sources.
Unanswered Question
What nobody has ever confirmed publicly is how her estate is structured now, who manages her music catalog and publishing rights, and how royalties are divided among her surviving family. Her daughter, Aarion Pace Rhodes, has spoken about carrying her mother’s legacy forward, but the financial mechanics of the estate remain private, as is common with most gospel artists.
Methodology Transparency
This estimate is built from Billboard chart history, the number and scope of her album releases, standard gospel industry appearance and royalty structures, and public reporting on her career milestones. It is not sourced from tax filings, probate records, or direct confirmation from her family, and readers should treat it as an informed approximation rather than an audited figure.
LaShun Pace Net Worth in Context: Peer Comparison
To understand what $1.5 million to $2.5 million actually means, it helps to compare LaShun Pace to peers who worked in similar gospel lanes during the same era.
- Artists with a single crossover hit but no sustained chart presence typically land well under $1 million.
- Artists with one strong solo career and no group affiliation, similar success without a group multiplier, often sit in the same $1 million to $2 million range.
- Artists who combined decades of solo work with a successful family group, her closest peer group, tend to land in the $2 million to $4 million range, which places LaShun Pace solidly in the middle of that tier.
Her net worth is neither inflated nor undersold. It reflects exactly what four decades of consistent gospel output, without a pop crossover, typically produces.
Personal Life: Faith, Loss, and Five Years on a Machine
LaShun Pace’s financial story cannot be separated from her personal one. In 2003, she published her autobiography, For My Good But For His Glory, in which she wrote about the death of her first daughter, Xenia, who died of a heart attack.
The losses continued in later years. Her mother, Bettie Ann Pace, was diagnosed with stage five kidney failure in 2018 and passed away on July 7, 2020. Her sister Duranice Pace died on January 14, 2021, at age 62. LaShun herself spent the final five years of her life on kidney dialysis while waiting for a donor who never arrived in time. She died of organ failure on March 21, 2022, at age 60.
Rather than step back from public life during that period, she leaned further into ministry, continuing to tour and perform even as her health declined. She is survived by her daughter, Aarion Pace Rhodes.
Philanthropy
Much of LaShun Pace’s giving happened outside the spotlight, in the way common to ministry families rather than celebrity foundations. She regularly performed at benefit concerts and church fundraisers, and her family’s close relationship with filmmaker Tyler Perry became public when he granted her mother’s dying wish to become a homeowner in 2018. That gesture reflected the kind of community and faith based support system LaShun herself operated within for most of her life, one built on relationships and reciprocity rather than formal charitable structures.
LaShun Pace Net Worth Legacy: The Voice That Outlived Its Era
LaShun Pace’s financial legacy did something unusual for an artist of her generation: it grew after her death. The 2022 TikTok moment introduced “Act Like You Know” to millions of new listeners just weeks before she passed, and that attention translated directly into streaming numbers that continue paying royalties to her estate today.
Her catalog, spanning nine solo albums and seven group records with The Anointed Pace Sisters, remains in active rotation on gospel radio and streaming platforms in 2026. Few gospel artists from her generation have seen their music find a second audience this way, and it is a direct result of the consistency she built over four decades rather than any single hit.
Conclusion
LaShun Pace’s net worth, estimated between $1.5 million and $2.5 million, tells the story of a career built the slow way: through album royalties, church appearances, songwriting income, and decades of showing up. She never had a pop crossover moment during her lifetime, yet her voice reached a global audience anyway, first through gospel radio and later through TikTok.
Her financial legacy is modest by mainstream music standards, but her cultural legacy is not. That gap between the two numbers is the real story behind LaShun Pace, and it is one worth remembering every time her music plays.
FAQs
What was LaShun Pace’s net worth when she died?
Her estimated net worth at the time of her passing in March 2022 was between $1.5 million and $2.5 million, built primarily through gospel album sales, touring, and royalties.
How did LaShun Pace make most of her money?
She earned income through solo and group album sales, songwriting royalties, church and revival appearance fees, an acting role in Leap of Faith, and her autobiography.
Was LaShun Pace part of a group or a solo artist?
Both. She had a successful solo career starting with 1990’s He Lives, and she also formed The Anointed Pace Sisters with eight of her siblings in 1988.
What is LaShun Pace’s most famous song?
“I Know I’ve Been Changed,” from her 1990 debut album He Lives, remains her signature and most recognized song.
Did LaShun Pace’s music become popular again after her death?
Yes. A 2022 TikTok clip of “Act Like You Know” went viral just weeks before she died, introducing her voice to a new generation of listeners.
How did LaShun Pace die?
She died on March 21, 2022, at age 60, from organ failure after spending five years on kidney dialysis while waiting for a donor.
Who is LaShun Pace’s daughter?
Her surviving daughter is Aarion Pace Rhodes, who has spoken publicly about continuing her mother’s legacy.
Was LaShun Pace ever in a movie?
Yes. She co-starred as the Angel of Mercy in the 1992 film Leap of Faith alongside Steve Martin.
Jax Jokely is a seasoned humorist with over a decade of experience crafting sharp, laugh-out-loud content. Known for his clever wit and playful tone, he’s penned countless jokes and punchlines that have lit up columns, comedy sites, and social feeds alike. Whether it’s quick one-liners or clever observations, Jax brings the kind of humor that sticks—and speaks.