Tasha Cobbs Leonard

Tasha Cobbs Leonard, a gospel vocalist, songwriter, and Atlanta-area pastor from Georgia, first gained widespread attention in 2013 thanks to her commanding Grammy-winning track "Break Every Chain." Subsequent projects sustained her momentum, among them the 2015 live recording One Place Live, the 2017 joint effort Heart. Passion. Pursuit., and 2020’s Royalty: Live at the Ryman, all while she maintained her pastoral duties in Atlanta. She resurfaced in 2022 with the expansive live set HYMNS, followed by the 2023 retrospective 10 Years of Tasha and the 2024 standalone release "Do It Anyway."

Raised in Jesup, Georgia, she began directing worship at Jesup New Life Ministries, the congregation her father, Bishop Fritz Cobbs, had established. Accepting a position in 2006 with Pastor William H. Murphy III at dReam Center Church of Atlanta, she spent the next three years traveling nationwide within his musical outreach. By 2010 she had stepped out independently, issuing her first solo album, Smile, on the self-run Tasha Cobbs Ministries imprint.

Her profile expanded sharply in 2013 after signing with EMI and unveiling the major-label debut Grace, which led Billboard’s gospel tally and reached number 61 on the pop chart; its flagship single "Break Every Chain" later secured a Grammy for Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance. Shifting to Motown Gospel two years afterward, she delivered One Place Live, captured at Redemption Church in Greenville, South Carolina, where it again topped the gospel ranking and climbed to number 28 on the Billboard 200.

Early in 2017 she wed producer Kenneth Leonard; months later came her fourth album, Heart. Passion. Pursuit., a studio collection boasting appearances by Kierra Sheard, Anna Golden, and Nicki Minaj that once more claimed the top gospel spot and later yielded a live document taped at Passion City Church in Atlanta. The four-track Intercession EP followed in 2020, cut live at Ocean Way Studio in Nashville, while the Grammy-nominated Royalty: Live at the Ryman surfaced the same year and spawned the radio favorite "In Spite of Me." For her subsequent release she revisited traditional hymns through expansive reinterpretations that moved across country and R&B palettes; tracked live in Chicago with Jennifer Hudson and Mary Mary among the guests, HYMNS arrived in 2022 and peaked at number three on the Gospel chart. Motown Gospel then issued the career-spanning 10 Years of Tasha in 2023, and amid team-ups with Lecrae, Natalie Grant, and Jekalyn Carr, Cobbs issued the solo single "Do It Anyway" in 2024.