LaKisha Jones

LaKisha Ann Jones is an American singer best known for placing fourth on the sixth season of the television competition American Idol. Her career spans music recordings, live concert tours, television appearances, and musical theater performances on Broadway.

Jones was born at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, to a mother who worked as a teacher at the Flint Foundation Academy. Raised by her grandmother, Ruth Jefferson Morris, Jones was an only child and grew up singing at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church from the age of five. Although formally trained in classical music, her favorite genre is gospel. She was initially homeschooled in Flint before attending Flint Central High School, where she performed in the play Lead Poisoning and sang with the Madrigal Singers. After graduating in 1998, she studied music at the University of Michigan-Flint and appeared in a collegiate production of Godspell.

Early in her career, Jones won Flint's amateur talent competition, The Supershow, in 1997. She later lived in Houston, Texas, for six years, where she took second place in the 2005 Gimme the Mic competition, sang in a 70-member church choir, and worked as a secretary at Abundant Life Cathedral. In 2006, she relocated to Fort Meade, Maryland, to be near family and worked as a bank teller at Provident Bank in Millersville, Maryland, prior to her television debut.

Encouraged by her five-year-old daughter, Jones auditioned for American Idol by singing Aretha Franklin's "Think." During the audition process, she also performed "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" and Stevie Wonder's "Until You Come Back To Me." She advanced through the competition to finish in fourth place. Following the season, she joined the Top 10 Idols tour, earning positive reviews for her solo performance of "I Will Always Love You," and sang the Star-Spangled Banner at Comerica Park for a Detroit Tigers baseball game in June 2007.

In early 2008, Jones joined the Broadway musical The Color Purple as the church soloist while also standing in as Sofia during matinée performances. Later that year, she served as a vocal coach on MTV's Legally Blonde: The Musical – The Search for Elle Woods and appeared on American Idol Extra. She released her debut single, "So Glad I'm Me," in October 2008, followed by her debut album of the same title in May 2009. In 2013, she competed on the television series The Winner Is, performing "Lady Marmalade."

In May and June 2007, Jones was honored with official homecoming events in both Houston, where Mayor Bill White declared "LaKisha Jones Day," and Flint, where she received community gifts and recognition. In October 2008, Jones married financial advisor Larry Davis in Beverly Hills, California. She is a mother to two daughters.