Ledisi

Ledisi ranks among the foremost postmillennial interpreters of R&B and jazz, having remained one of the genre’s closely guarded talents until Lost & Found (2007) carried her into the upper reaches of Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart. By the time the New Orleans native unveiled that breakthrough recording, she had already established herself as a thriving, independent performer boasting several respected albums. The project inaugurated a ten-year alliance with Verve Forecast, cemented a lasting creative alliance with songwriter and producer Rex Rideout, and earned Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best R&B Album. Subsequent Verve releases—Turn Me Loose (2009), Pieces of Me (2011), The Truth (2014), and Let Love Rule (2017)—each steeped in classic R&B yet executed with contemporary polish, achieved comparable or heightened commercial traction and garnered consistent Academy recognition. Ledisi later reclaimed full independence through The Wild Card (2020), Ledisi Sings Nina (2021), and Good Life (2024), all issued on her own Listen Back Entertainment imprint; the opening set includes the Grammy-winning “Anything for You.” Demonstrating uncommon versatility, she also became one of the few artists to portray both Dorothy in a stage production of The Wiz and Mahalia Jackson in Ava DuVernay’s Selma.

Born Ledisi Young in the Big Easy, she performed at age eight alongside the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra and spent countless childhood hours observing her mother sing with a local R&B ensemble. Following the family’s move to Oakland, Ledisi emulated her mother by joining a band, yet soon departed to cultivate her own voice and ensemble while expanding her stylistic range. A local staging of The Wiz brought her a Shellie Award nomination in 1990 for her portrayal of Dorothy, after which she attracted wider attention through extended runs in the San Francisco cabaret Beach Blanket Babylon. She simultaneously assembled the group Anibade—named after her middle name—whose recorded sound, though reminiscent of Rufus & Chaka Khan’s lineup, proved gentler and occasionally blended R&B, hip-hop, jazz, and funk. The band cultivated an ardent following throughout the Bay Area, prompting Ledisi to pursue contracts with major labels, each of which offered praise yet ultimately declined.

Undeterred, she recorded her first solo album, Soulsinger, and issued it in 2000 on the independent LeSun Music label she co-founded with musical collaborator Sundra “Sun” Manning. Marketed solely at her frequent live appearances, the set flourished without major distribution, earned widespread critical praise, and reached listeners in England, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. After further showcasing her breadth on the 2001 follow-up Feeling Orange But Sometimes Blue and overseeing Tommy Boy’s reissue of Soulsinger (retitled Soulsinger: The Revival), she joined Verve’s Verve Forecast subsidiary and began a sustained partnership with songwriter and producer Rex Rideout. Her third studio album, Lost & Found, arrived in 2007, peaking at number 78 on the Billboard 200 and number ten on the R&B/hip-hop chart; its singles “Alright” and “In the Morning” each entered the Top 50 of the R&B/hip-hop survey. Thanks to her longstanding connection with urban adult contemporary radio, both tracks performed even more strongly on the adult R&B chart. Veteran supporters found wry amusement when Ledisi appeared among the 2007 Grammy nominees for Best New Artist, while Lost & Found itself received a Best R&B Album nomination that same year.

She issued the holiday collection It’s Christmas for the 2008 season and, the following year, delivered her fourth proper studio album, Turn Me Loose. The aptly named set, containing some of her most forceful material, included collaborations with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis as well as Raphael Saadiq; it debuted at number 14 on the Billboard 200, topped the R&B/hip-hop chart, and produced two additional Grammy nominations—Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for the Rex Rideout co-write “Goin’ Thru Changes” and Best R&B Album. Pieces of Me followed in 2011, propelled by two of her strongest singles—the title track and the Jaheim duet “Stay Together”—both of which reached the Top Five on the adult R&B chart. The album marked her first Top Ten Billboard 200 entry and came within a single position of the R&B/hip-hop summit, earning further Grammy nods for Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song, and Best R&B Performance, the latter two for the title song. In between projects she co-wrote and sang lead on Robert Glasper Experiment’s Grammy-nominated “It’s Gonna Be Alright (F.T.B.).” Her own The Truth, notable for its plentiful uptempo tracks devoid of pop compromises, surfaced in 2014 and became her fourth consecutive Top Ten R&B/hip-hop release; the Rideout-assisted “Like This” secured another Best R&B Performance nomination.

Shortly after the 2015 domestic release of the Academy Award-nominated film Selma, in which Ledisi depicted gospel icon Mahalia Jackson, she issued the acoustic EP The Intimate Truth. In 2017 she returned with Let Love Rule, which rose to number two on the R&B/hip-hop chart and yielded three more Recording Academy nominations: Best R&B Album, Best Traditional R&B Performance for “All the Way,” and Best R&B Performance for “High.” Both nominated tracks extended her streak of adult R&B Top Ten singles. Now operating as CEO of Listen Back Entertainment, Ledisi introduced “Anything for You” in April 2020 ahead of her eighth studio album; The Wild Card appeared four months later, and “Anything for You” ultimately captured the Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance. She next recorded Ledisi Sings Nina with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and the Metropole Orkest. Issued in July 2021, the project coincided with a PBS special and a series of concerts honoring Nina Simone’s legacy. Ledisi portrayed Gladys Knight in the 2023 biographical drama Spinning Gold, centered on Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart. The following March she released Good Life, fronted by the charting single “Sell Me No Dreams” and featuring guest appearances by Kenny Lattimore and Butcher Brown.