For Joshua Nelson, sing unto the lord a new song is more than just a commandment. The Isaiah 42:10 verse is a challenge for him and all Jews to continue to bring something new to the table.

Kosher gospel music is just that.

The words together may seem strange at first, but then Mr. Nelson, the self-proclaimed prince of kosher gospel, explains how pairing soulful music with Hebrew prayers gives Judaism a new layer.

“That commandment was put in there so we wouldn’t get stagnant with being Jewish,” he said in a telephone interview this week. “If we don’t allow ourselves to renew ourselves within our traditions we get stagnant. It acts as a teaching mechanism.”

Mr. Nelson and the Kosher Gospel Singers perform Tuesday night at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center.

Jewish music is about life, culture, community and aspirations, he said.

“Music and the shape of the music is left open for an artist or person to explore. It gives them a chance to sing a new song.”

And the story of the prince of kosher gospel has another layer — Mr. Nelson is a Jewish African American.

“Now, I’m a Jewish African American, not an African American Jew,” he said. “Why not vice versa? Because I define my life as Jewish by standards and not somebody else’s classification. If a person sees me as a black person, that’s not my problem. People shouldn’t see people as black people, they should see them as human beings.”

Mr. Nelson has sung with Aretha Franklin and Wynton Marsalis, among others. And if you’re wondering who the king of kosher gospel is, he says it’s his friend Craig Tautman. Now 34, Mr. Nelson grew up attending synagogue in Brooklyn, N.Y. and South Orange, N.J., his home town. He traces his Jewish heritage back to his great-great-grandmother in Africa.

“As a child you have different perceptions . . . you get mixed in the winds of people’s perceptions and that can culminate into storms if people aren’t aware of you,” he said. “It was a little difficult. In the Jewish community we were misunderstood for being black and in the black community we were misunderstood for being Jewish.”

The contrast enabled Mr. Nelson to connect to his religion and ethnicity in a different way. Mr. Nelson remembered looking through his grandmother’s music collection and finding Mahalia Jackson, the queen of gospel.

“If you ask many Jews, lots of Jews had her albums. On the surface she was a Christian gospel singer, but it went beyond that,” he said. “But for all the Jews that felt guiltily for listening to Christian gospel songs, I made it kosher for them so they don’t have to have the guilt.”

He recalled a Ray Charles album.

“My grandmother had the Ray Charles country western album. What black family had that album? I was brought up in the right family,” he said, laughing.

He said his music doesn’t fall into any particular category but his own.

“Judaism is a breathing group of people and the music is a consequence of the essence of Judaism as opposed to fitting in to a prescribed type of music,” he said.

Some of the spirituals hark back to slavery, when the only way slaves could communicate was through song; others are traditional Hebrew prayers with a soulful twist.

Kosher gospel has the power to connect people who went through something, Mr. Nelson said, and both Jews and African Americans can identify with his music.

“The purpose of this is to bring people together,” he said. “Living together peacefully is the manifestation of religious doctrine . . . music touches on everything.

“Someone said to me after a concert, you give me goose bumps, and I said, no, that’s just soul speaking to you.”

J oshua Nelson and the Kosher Gospel Singers perform Tuesday night at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for children, available in advance at Alley’s General Store, Aboveground Records, Cousen Rose Gallery or ticketsmv.com.