Twitter quickly lit up over all three women, sending all three of them into the Top 4 trending topics, only behind the Super Bowl itself. Still not quite as good as H.E.R., but she salvaged what could have been a huge disappointment. Instead, we had Church's sleepy rendition, only salvaged by Sullivan bringing her all to her part, hitting the high notes he didn't even bother to try and making it memorable by the close. She's got the vocal chops, and the guitar would have added a whole new, cool element to it. It was an impossible act to follow, because all we could think as Church kicked off the national anthem was how incredible H.E.R. The duo were in a tough spot from the jump, though, following H.E.R.'s incredible performance of "America the Beautiful." She brought electric guitar into it a la Jimi Hendrix, accompanied with an incredible vocal performance. On March 27th, she’ll face down Beyonce, H.E.R., Alicia Keys and Ledisi for Outstanding Female Artist at the NAACP Image Awards.Every Must-See Super Bowl LV Commercial That Went Viral, Blew Us Away or Left Us Scratching Our Heads But Sullivan is up for a major award at the end of March. Her latest album was released too late to be considered for the 2021 Grammy Awards. Her musical mother, who sang with McFadden & Whitehead, nurtured Sullivan’s talent, leading to her 2008 debut, Fearless. Andrew’s Fellowship Baptist Church in Germantown, a few miles away from her family home in Strawberry Mansion. And the home of the brave Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church kicked off Super Bowl LV with an incredible, unifying performance of 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' The 2020 CMA Awards entertainer of the. Sullivan started singing when she was a young child at St. Instead, the two singers bounced vocal tracks off of each other virtually, eventually getting a chance to run through the tune a few times in person a couple of days before the Super Bowl. Thanks to COVID, Sullivan says she wasn’t able to rehearse with Church the “normal” way. People should be more concerned about America as a whole and how we treat each other than about how I might change the melody of the song.” “I feel like people are married to the old ways of this country. “Sometimes it hurt a little bit and sometimes it made me laugh,” Sullivan says of the haters. And the unusual version conjured up by Church and Sullivan had plenty of social media critics. As happens anytime somebody performs the National Anthem at a major event, some people love it, and some people don’t. Of course, not everybody thought it was beautiful. And I think they wanted to show that two very different artists from two very different backgrounds can come together and make something beautiful.” “I didn’t know who he was at first,” Sullivan admits, with a laugh.
Sullivan says that she was similarly unfamiliar with Church. And though she’s been nominated for twelve Grammy awards (she lost the 2008 Grammy for Best New Artist to none other than Adele), people watching the Super Bowl may have had to Google the name Jazmine Sullivan ( Uproxx has called her career “criminally underrated”) as her voice soared inside the stadium, fireworks bursting overhead. During the previous decade, the roster of National Anthem singers at the Super Bowl included names like Lady Gaga, Pink, and Alicia Keys. I thought the Super Bowl was only for super duper famous people.” “I never even considered that this was something I would ever do. She says somebody - she’s not sure who - called her manager to see if Sullivan could do it.
As best as she can remember, Sullivan only got the call to sing at the Super Bowl a week or two before the globally-televised event.