Tori Kelly Says ‘God Must Really Love Me’
Three-time GRAMMY winner and generational vocal talent Tori Kelly released God Must Really Love Me, via Epic Records. In celebration of the album’s release, Tori will perform “Hurts So Good” on Live with Kelly & Mark today.
She recently performed the lead single “Control” on the season finale of American Idol and discussed the album and its inspirations with Variety – read it HERE. Last week, Tori also performed the National Anthem at Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals in San Antonio, TX – watch the captivating performance HERE.
With its radiant fusion of R&B, soul, acoustic pop, and gospel, the resulting body of work unveils a new dimension of her sophisticated musicality and singular voice—the outcome of a newfound willingness to let restraint carry as much impact as virtuosity. God Must Really Love Me moves with an unhurried ease that echoes the effortless confidence and clarity of vision that Tori brought to every step of the album’s creation.
“This album is so special to me,” Tori shares. “After my son was born, I was hit with a flood of inspiration and most of the music was done in two weeks when my son was just two months old. I feel such gratitude and peace in my life right now, and I love that you can hear that in this music.”
The tracklisting’s myriad high points include its sublimely tender title track, a minute-long outpouring of adoration for her son, adorned with a heart-melting recording of Zayden’s voice, the hypnotic “Control,” where she alchemizes a moment of everyday chaos into a meditation on surrender, “Dive,” which Tori wrote while seven-months pregnant, is a windows-down anthem that channels the pure exhilaration of plunging into the unknown, the luminous and dreamlike “Too Much,” which she wrote just ten days after Zayden’s birth, “Bird,” which serves as the centerpiece and emotional core of the album, and “Bliss,” an acoustic-guitar-driven, harmony-laced reverie written as a lullaby while holding her son.
In a meaningful departure from her previous work, Tori crafted most of the new LP’s songs in solitude before heading into the studio with in-demand producers/co-writers like DIXSON (Kehlani, Vic Mensa), Nija Charles (Summer Walker, Kiana Ledé), Emily Warren (Dua Lipa, Noah Kahan), and Ammo (Beyoncé, Teddy Swims). Although the LP mostly came to life in Los Angeles with her two main collaborators, Tommy King (HAIM, Donna Missal) and Dan Farber (Lizzo, Alessia Cara), a number of songs surfaced while touring Europe in summer 2025 with superstar Ed Sheeran.
Tori is currently on the road with GRAMMY-nominated and GMA DOVE Award-winning artist Forrest Frank for his The Jesus Generation Tour. The tour continues tonight at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, VA, followed by shows at Geodis Park, Nashville, TN, Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, CA, at Ball Arena in Denver, CO, and Moody Center in Austin, TX. The tour will conclude on August 1 at Globe Life Field. For more information and tickets, please visit https://www.torikellymusic.com/.
Photo credit: Daniel Antropik