Grammy Award Winner Samara Joy on Family’s Roots of Faith

Published: April 11, 2023

Grammy Award Winner Samara Joy on Family’s Roots of Faith

By Movieguide® Contributor

Samara Joy, Grammy Award-winning jazz singer who attributes her musical roots to the church and her family’s evangelism.

In a recent Interview with Terry Gross, Joy spoke on her family’s history in ministry which started with her grandparents.

Both of Joy’s grandparents were pastors and they started a gospel choir called the SAVETTES which traveled around the city of Philadelphia. They traveled around the city in a van they called the Godmobile.

“[M]y dad does tell stories about people walking by and actually engaging and singing along and eventually getting saved and stuff,” Joy stated.

Joy’s grandfather was offered a recording contract to sing Opera music, but the offer would be thrown in the garbage by her grandmother.

“I think she threw it in the garbage because I think at that time, it was church or nothing — sacred, no secular,” said Joy.

In addition to this, Joy mentioned that her grandfather was cautious about Joy singing secular music or even studying music as school. Her grandfather would say that “music belongs in the church.”

However, now seeing his granddaughter share her faith with new audiences on the platform that she’s been given he’s come around.

“I think he’s realizing there’s more than one way to spread the Gospel,” she celebrated. 

Joy’s father is also a worship leader at their church. At 16, Joy was selected to join the choir and praise team at her neighborhood church. Joy did not feel she was prepared to step into that role, but her father thought otherwise.

Her father encouraged her to take the new role head on and comforted her with the advice that she was not expected to be perfect but to have “your ears open and your spirit open to whatever the moment calls for,” Joy told Gross. 

Joy gave all credit to her father when she changed her perspective on her performances. She made it less about herself and more about others’ experience of worship.

In the interview with Gross, Joy mentioned that she would have changed her Grammy acceptance speech last year.

“I was very overwhelmed [during the speech] and I wish I could go back and do it again. But I guess what I meant, really in my head [what] I was trying to say was, … a lot of times in the music industry or from the outside looking in, you see people change or they’re kind of forced to change in order to fit in, are forced to blend in or assimilate alongside all of these creatives in order to get their shot,” Joy stated. “And so, I felt like it was incredible for me to even be in that room and be a part of something so special … without having to necessarily change anything about who I am in order to fit in. It’s like I fit in already by just being myself.”

In 2023, Joy won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Best New Artist. She continues to perform and record music that reflects her deep roots in the church and her family’s evangelism.