Skip to content
Search

Alexia Jayy Makes ‘The Voice’ History as First Black-Woman Winner

The contestant from Adam Levine’s team was crowned the winner of Season 29, having delivered knockout performances of songs from Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Adele, and more

Alexia Jayy Makes ‘The Voice’ History as First Black-Woman Winner

Adam Levine and Alexia Jayy, Season 29 winner of “The Voice”

Trae Patton/NBC

Alexia Jayy’s powerhouse voice carried her to the top on The Voice. After weeks of battles in which she delivered knockout performances of songs from Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Adele, and more, Jayy was crowned the winner of Season 29. She’s the first Black woman to win The Voice in its 15-year history.

“Thank you guys for absolutely everything this was unforgettable experience and one I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” Jayy wrote on Instagram. The 31-year-old competed on Team Adam, handing coach Adam Levine his first win since Season Nine and fourth overall. He is now tied with Kelly Clarkson for most wins.


Jayy celebrated her victory with a performance at Blue Note in Los Angeles. “A whole watch party for the finale … then hearing my name called as the winner,” she wrote on Instagram. “I got on that stage right after, poured my heart out, and even had a lil duet with Adam. Thank y’all for real … the way you keep showing up and showing OUT for me? I feel every bit of it. Forever grateful. Just the beginning.”

Levine praised Jayy at Blue Note, telling her, “Let me tell you, you did this yourself. I was a little bit of help, you did it all on your own.” Turning to the crowd, he added, “She deserves all of it, and I am so, so proud and so happy.” The pair then performed Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning.”

As winner, Jayy receives $100,000 and a recording deal with Universal Music Group. Prior to appearing on The Voice, the singer independently released a number of singles and the EP Mixed Emotions, which arrived in September 2025.

More Stories

50 Years Ago Today: The Ramones Took on the Punk Skeptics at Their West Coast Debut

The Ramones in Santa Monica in 1976 (from left): Johnny Ramone, Tommy Ramone, Joey Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone

50 Years Ago Today: The Ramones Took on the Punk Skeptics at Their West Coast Debut

By the time the Ramones traveled to Los Angeles in August 1976 to play their very first West Coast concerts, they’d already established themselves as the vanguard act of the thriving New York City punk scene, signed a deal with Sire Records, released their groundbreaking debut album, gigged up and down the East Coast, and even played a couple of landmark gigs in London a month earlier that had a seismic impact on the burgeoning underground rock scene that had recently birthed the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Damned, and many others.

But punk hadn’t quite made its way out to California at this point, even though the Runaways had formed, and the press was still quite skeptical of the Ramones and the entire movement they represented. “The album cover photo [of their debut] — which looks as if taken from a post office wanted poster — shows four young toughs wearing black leather jackets and old, wrinkled jeans,” wrote the noted Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn on Aug. 1, 1976, just 10 days before the Ramones made their L.A. debut at the Roxy. “Two of the guys are wearing dark glasses and smirking in the slightly perverse way that would make even the sadistic gang from A Clockwork Orange consider crossing the street to avoid a confrontation.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Travis Barker Fights Through the Pain in ‘Louder Than Fear’ Trailer

Travis Barker

Gary Gershoff/WireImage

Travis Barker Fights Through the Pain in ‘Louder Than Fear’ Trailer

Travis Barker‘s near-death experience in a plane crash in 2008 is at the center of the trailer for upcoming documentary, Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear. Co-directed by Justin Krook and Michael Dwyer, the film reflects on the Blink-182 drummer’s life and career, including how he battled “pain, grief and the thin line between survival and surrender.”

Louder Than Fear debuted at the Tribeca Festival in New York earlier this year and will arrive on Hulu and Disney+ on Aug. 13. It features appearances from late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, Barker’s bandmates Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge, and Barker’s wife, Kourtney Kardashian.

Keep ReadingShow less
Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny Dealt With Trump Quietly. It’s a Smart Move

Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny in a split image

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic; Peter White/Getty Images

Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny Dealt With Trump Quietly. It’s a Smart Move

Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny are both major superstars — and they’ve shared some parallels in their careers and discographies for several years. Now, they’re even using the same playbook to deal with taunts and baiting from Donald Trump and the White House’s social media teams.

Since Trump took office during his second term, he and his administration have been using social media as part of their communication strategy. The propaganda-like, rage-bait-style clips often lean into internet culture and use popular music to make light of Trump’s most egregious actions, like his immigration policy and war-hungry foreign policy.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Road Behind Canada's Country Renaissance
Nick Leonard

The Road Behind Canada's Country Renaissance

Across Canada, country music is synonymous with gatherings. It lives in the dust of a summer rodeo, the sticky floor of a neighborhood dive bar and the reverberating rafters of an arena filled with thousands of voices singing back every word. While most of the music industry spent the last decade adapting to a digital-first reality, country music continues to derive its power from physical spaces.


In an age of algorithmically generated playlists, the true currency of the genre remains the shared experience.

Keep ReadingShow less
Morgan Freeman on His New Blues Album and His Action-Star Dreams

"Just keep moving," says Morgan Freeman, who sees no retirement in sight at age 89.

Courtesy Ground Zero Blues Club Media

Morgan Freeman on His New Blues Album and His Action-Star Dreams

Morgan Freeman has spent the last five decades playing Batman’s Bat-Tech supplier, the president of the United States (multiple times), Nelson Mandela, and God himself, but since 2001, he’s also been the proprietor of his very own juke joint. He co-founded Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi — a state where he spent part of his childhood — after realizing that visitors to the site of Robert Johnson‘s crossroads had no place to hear the blues.

The latest offshoot of that venture is the just-released album Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, which does just what the title promises, adding tasteful orchestral arrangements by London’s Chineke! Orchestra to new takes on blues standards. Taj Mahal covers Son House’s “Death Letter Blues,” Keb’ Mo’ revs up Albert King’s “Cadillac Assembly Line,” and Shemekia Copeland reclaims Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues,” nodding to Led Zeppelin’s reinvention of it along the way. The album, which also includes historical narration by Freeman, benefits the Ground Zero Arts Foundation, the club’s charitable arm. It grew out of a touring live show of the same name featuring local orchestras alongside Ground Zero regulars, with Freeman’s filmed narration.

Keep ReadingShow less