Childhood & Early Life
She was born on November 25, 1991, in Los Angeles, California, US to Bishop James Henry Harper and Mona Nanette Harper (née, Tellis) both of whom pastor Kingdom City Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Her elder sister Morgan Harper Nichols is an American Christian musician, songwriter, gospel music recording artist and guitarist. Both the sisters were homeschooled while being raised in Atlanta, Georgia. They used to sing and play instruments in school and church as kids.
Jamie completed her graduation earning a bachelor's degree in children's ministry from Point University.
She was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at age eleven and also has obsessive–compulsive disorder. She founded ImAFighter.org in her teens to raise awareness and encourage and support children suffering from Tourette syndrome. She also founded the Jamie Grace Foundation and its extension LoveWill.net at a later stage.
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Career
She created a YouTube account on August 3, 2007, where she started uploading videos of her songs. With time the videos started garnering attention from producers and record labels and eventually at age 17 she landed up with an acting and singing gig with international Christian-based broadcast TV network TBN’s iShine KNECT show and subsequently started touring with iShine LIVE with the Pop/Hip Hop CD she self-produced.
Christian hip hop recording artist, author, songwriter and music producer TobyMac discovered her in 2010 and later that year she went on to sign to record label Gotee Records founded by TobyMac.
TobyMac produced the first EP of Jamie titled ‘Hold Me’ released through his Gotee Records on February 22, 2011. Its title track featuring TobyMac became quite popular finding place in Christian Hit Radio stations thus garnering Jamie widespread recognition.
Other tracks of ‘Hold Me’ include ‘Into Jesus’ (DC Talk cover), ‘One Song at a Time’ (featuring GabeReal of DiverseCity) and ‘Holding On’ (Lo-fi Version). The music style of Jamie is somewhat unique. She produces specific sound blending elements from pop, folk and hip hop music. Some of her tracks include elements of guest vocalists such as that of TobyMac in ‘Hold Me’ and of GabeReal in ‘One Song at a Time’.
Jesus Freak Hideout declared on May 4, 2011 that Jamie’s first single ‘Hold Me’ garnered the top spot at CHR. In 2012, the single garnered her Grammy Awards nomination for Best Contemporary Christian Music Song. She also earned three nominations at the 2012 Dove Awards finally winning the New Artist of the Year award.
The track ‘Hold Me’ also found place in Jamie’s first album titled ‘One Song at a Time’ that released through Gotee Records on September 20, 2011. The album that consist of 11 tracks received generally positive reviews from critics and peaked at #4 on the US Christian Albums (Billboard) chart and also emerged as the 84th most sold album in the US. It garnered the Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year nomination at the 2012 Dove Awards.
She came up with her second EP ‘Christmas Together’ released through Gotee Records on November 29, 2011. Tracks of the EP include ‘Christmas Together’, ‘Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)’, ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ and ‘What Child Is This?’
While working on her singing pursuits, Jamie forayed into acting. She played Rachel in the October 4, 2013 released Christian musical drama film ‘Grace Unplugged’ that starred AJ Michalka, Kevin Pollak and James Denton. The following year she featured in the May 2 released drama, sci-fi, thriller movie ‘Rumors of Wars’.
The second studio album of this talented singer titled ‘Ready to Fly’ was released via Gotee Records on January 28, 2014. Produced by Christopher Stevens and David Garcia, the album consists of 14 tracks including ‘Just a Friend’ featuring Jose "Manwell" Reyes; ‘White Boots’ featuring Morgan Harper Nichols; and ‘Fighter (Acoustic) – Bonus Track’ featuring Jason Crabb.
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‘Ready to Fly’ received critical acclaim and peaked at #3 on the US Christian Albums (Billboard) chart and at #32 on the US Billboard 200 chart.
The Winter Jam Tour Spectacular, the largest annual Christian music tour of the US founded by American contemporary Christian music group ‘NewSong’ celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2015. That year the tour was divided into two areas - the West Coast tour and East Coast tour. Jamie remained part of the West Coast tour that was held from November 6 to 16 of that year.
Jamie departed from Gotee Records, an announcement on which was made by her and her sister in August 2016. English singer and songwriter Adele praised Jamie’s voice when the latter sang a cover of Elvis Presley’s ‘I Can't Help Falling in Love With You’ at an Adele concert held that year.
Jamie released the song ‘Party Like a Princess’ to most of the leading streaming services on November 25, 2016, marking her 25th birthday. It was also spawned as a promotional single for her forthcoming third studio album.
She released the track titled ‘The Happy Song’ as the lead single of her third studio album on April 21, 2017. That year on July 11 streaming live on YouTube, she declared the name of her third album as '91, as also its release date as September 1, 2017. She uploaded the second single of the album on YouTube titled ‘Daughter of a King’ on July 21 that year. '91 released on its scheduled date and in no time climbed atop the Christian & Gospel charts.
She appeared among the main artists and remained a keynote speaker in the Revolve Tour conducted by the Christian-based live events organization ‘Women of Faith’.
She started her journey with YouTube where her channel presently boasts of having over 87 million views and more than 266 K subscribers. She has also garnered popularity in other social media platforms including in Twitter where she has over 210 K followers and on Instagram where she has amassed more than 281 K followers.
