Mandisa finished ninth on American Idol, then won a Grammy for Overcomer

Mandisa skipped the Grammys the year Overcomer won

Overcomer came out on Sparrow Records on August 27, 2013. Its title song, written by David Garcia, Ben Glover and Christopher Stevens, was the first single. The video had its premiere on Good Morning America, and Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly, Robin Roberts and Scott Hamilton are in it. The song spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the National Christian Audience chart, and the album had sold 140,000 copies in the United States by July 2014.

At the 56th Grammy Awards in 2014, Overcomer won Best Contemporary Christian Music Album, and its title song won Best Contemporary Christian Music Song for its three writers. Mandisa did not go. She said she had “fallen prey to the alluring pull of flesh, pride, and selfish desires quite a bit recently,” and that “submerging myself into an environment that celebrates those things was risky for me at this time.”

After a close friend died of breast cancer in 2014, Mandisa withdrew from public life and struggled with depression. She came back in May 2017 with Out of the Dark, her last studio album, and wrote a memoir about her depression. She was found dead at her home in Franklin, Tennessee, on April 18, 2024, at 47. On April 6, 2026, “Good Morning,” her song with TobyMac, played as the Artemis II crew woke up to begin preparations for their lunar flyby.

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Jennifer Hudson’s first album won Best R&B Album

On Idol in 2004, Jennifer Hudson got the most votes of the Top 9 with Elton John’s “Circle of Life.” Two weeks later she went out in seventh place, after Barry Manilow’s “Weekend in New England.” She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Effie White in Dreamgirls, and her debut album, Jennifer Hudson, came out in North America on September 30, 2008, on Arista and J Records.

Ne-Yo and Stargate wrote and produced the first single, “Spotlight,” which spent two weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Timbaland, Missy Elliott, T-Pain and Robin Thicke also worked on the album, and Fantasia sings with Hudson on “I’m His Only Woman.” The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, with 217,000 copies sold in its first week.

The album had four Grammy nominations. At the ceremony on February 8, 2009, Hudson sang “You Pulled Me Through,” a Diane Warren song from the album, and won Best R&B Album.

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The Color Purple brought Hudson to Broadway and to a second Grammy

On January 9, 2015, the producers Scott Sanders, Roy Furman and Oprah Winfrey announced that the Menier Chocolate Factory’s London production of The Color Purple, directed by John Doyle, would come to Broadway. Hudson would make her Broadway debut as Shug Avery, with Cynthia Erivo as Celie and Danielle Brooks as Sofia. The revival opened at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on December 10, 2015, and Heather Headley took over as Shug on May 10, 2016.

The revival won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, and its cast album won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album in 2017. The Recording Academy lists Hudson among its winners, with Erivo and Brooks; it was her second Grammy, after the one for her album. Fantasia had played Celie in the original Broadway production from April 2007 to January 2008, the first American Idol winner on Broadway.

• Fantasia Barrino: career and music

Adam Levine called Judith Hill a future Grammy winner

In the first episode of season 4 of The Voice, on March 25, 2013, Judith Hill sang Christina Aguilera’s “What a Girl Wants,” and all four coaches turned their chairs. She joined Adam Levine’s team. “She’s going to be a Grammy-winning superstar, and she’s on my team,” Levine said. She went out in the Top 8 after she sang will.i.am’s “#thatPOWER” on May 27.

In January 2013, two months before her audition aired, 20 Feet From Stardom had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Morgan Neville directed the documentary about backup singers, and the music executive Gil Friesen was one of its producers. It follows Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Hill and others. Hill had been chosen in 2009 as Michael Jackson’s duet partner for his This Is It concerts, and she sang the lead on “Heal the World” at his memorial.

The film opened in U.S. theaters on June 14, 2013, after her run on the show had ended. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature on March 2, 2014. At the 57th Grammy Awards in 2015 it won Best Music Film, and the award went to Neville, Friesen and the producer Caitrin Rogers, and to four of the singers: Love, Clayton, Fischer and Hill.

• Judith Hill: career and music
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Carrie Underwood leads the six with eight Grammys

Underwood, Kelly Clarkson and Fantasia won their seasons of American Idol, and all three have won Grammys since: Underwood eight, Clarkson three and Fantasia one. Clarkson’s first two came in 2006, for Breakaway and “Since U Been Gone.” Fantasia’s came in 2011, for “Bittersweet.” Jennifer Hudson, who went out seventh in Fantasia’s season, has two.

A songwriter and a producer from The Voice’s early rounds

Darius Scott went out in the live playoffs of season 9 in 2015. Recording as DIXSON, on February 1, 2026 he shared the Best R&B Song Grammy as a co-writer of Kehlani’s Folded.

Elley Duhé got no chair turn in the blind auditions of season 2 in 2012. In 2024 she won Best Dance/Electronic Recording as a credited producer of Rumble by Skrillex, Fred again.. and Flowdan, a song with her uncredited vocals.