Madison Ryann Ward

Born in Oklahoma, religious singer Madison Ryann Ward (b. September 16, 1994) has developed a style that spans pop, soul, folk, blues and gospel. She came into contact with music through her mother, who sang soul and blues classics in church and worked in her father's restaurant. A student at the University of Oklahoma, she then set her sights on a career as a top-level volleyball athlete, when she changed her mind to write songs after the viral success of her version of Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools ". Her growing notoriety led producer Rick Rubin to sign her to his American Recordings label, enabling her to record the track "Mirror " with producer Rex Rideout in 2018, followed by the Beyond Me EP (2019). A songwriter, Madison Ryann Ward continues as an independent artist with two albums, A New Thing (2023) and Purified Love (2024), which contains the Christian hit "Amen".