Mandisa

Born as Mandisa Lynn Hundley in 1976, Mandisa rose to prominence as one of the top-selling voices in contemporary Christian and gospel music throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. She spent her childhood in Sacramento, California, where church singing formed her earliest outlet, then trained in vocal performance at American River College before transferring to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and joining the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

After graduation she worked as a session and backup vocalist, supporting artists such as Trisha Yearwood and Shania Twain. Her national profile expanded in 2006 through her appearance on the fifth season of American Idol, where performances of Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’,” Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” and Mary Mary’s “Shackles (Praise You)” drew particular attention.

Once eliminated from the show, she pivoted directly into the contemporary Christian and gospel markets. Early in 2007 she joined Kirk Franklin on tobyMac’s Portable Sounds. Later that year she issued her debut album True Beauty, which featured the Fisk Jubilee Singers and tobyMac and reached number one on Billboard’s Top Christian Albums chart. A holiday project titled It’s Christmas followed, then her second studio album, the Grammy-nominated Freedom, appeared in 2009. Subsequent releases moved further from gospel roots toward straightforward contemporary Christian music. What If We Were Real arrived in 2011 and also earned a Grammy nomination, while Overcomer, released in 2013, won the award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. Four years later she released Out of the Dark, an album shaped by a period of severe depression triggered by the death of a close friend. Mandisa died on April 19, 2024, at the age of 47.