{"id":1941,"date":"2025-04-14T09:22:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T09:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=1941"},"modified":"2025-04-14T09:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T09:22:06","slug":"jamal-roberts-soulful-idol-moment-moves-judges-and-jelly-roll-to-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=1941","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Jamal Roberts\u2019 Soulful &#8216;Idol&#8217; Moment Moves Judges and Jelly Roll to Tears&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">Jamal Roberts delivered one of the most emotional moments on the American Idol 2025 stage with his cover of Jelly Roll\u2019s \u201cLiar\u201d\u2014a performance that left the audience breathless. With his rich, soulful voice and burning eyes, Jamal made it seem like it was his last time singing. Carrie Underwood called the performance \u201cso soulful,\u201d while Luke Bryan stated, \u201cYou sing like you have nothing to lose\u2014that\u2019s how a true artist has to live.\u201d In the audience, Jelly Roll couldn\u2019t hide her tears, her pride, and her emotion at seeing one of her songs delivered with such passion. Lionel Richie even said, \u201cIf I had a donation drive, I would have put all my money in it because of the feeling Jamal gave me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/a44-300x162.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"162\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1943\" srcset=\"https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/a44-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/a44.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>American Idol\u2018s Season 23 Top 24 are vying for America\u2019s votes for the first time. Sunday night\u2019s episode showed the first dozen hopefuls take the stage at Disney\u2019s Alauni Resort in Hawaii. Mentored by Ashanti and Jelly Roll, the twelve sang for a live crowd, performing songs that they chose themselves.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Smooth! Jamal Roberts Brings Soul to Chris Stapleton&#039;s \u201cTennessee Whiskey\u201d | American Idol 2025\" width=\"790\" height=\"444\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F5FqjF-QEgI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Among those who performed Sunday was Mississippi school teacher and dad of two, Jamal Roberts. Roberts first wowed the judges with his audition performance of \u201cMary Jane.\u201d After his audition, Lionel Richie praised his ability to tell a story. Luke Bryan agreed, saying that Jamal had a Southern soulfulness and was singing from his heart.<\/p>\n<p>Those qualities came through in Roberts\u2019 Hollywood Week performances. Viewers watched him deliver flawless Teddy Swims and Chris Stapleton covers, ultimately earning a place in the Top 24.<\/p>\n<p>Jamal Roberts chose to bring his own twist to a Jelly Roll hit for his Top 24 performance.<br \/>\nJamal took the stage to perform \u201cLiar,\u201d a song released by Jelly Roll in 2024 as a single from his album, Beautifully Broken. Jelly Roll debuted the song at the Grand Ole Opry and didn\u2019t intend to release it as a single.<\/p>\n<p>But after he performed it again at the ACM Awards a month later, fans embraced the song and encouraged him to release it. Three months later, it officially became a single.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/b4-300x163.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1944\" srcset=\"https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/b4-300x163.webp 300w, https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/b4-1024x557.webp 1024w, https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/b4-768x418.webp 768w, https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/b4-1536x836.webp 1536w, https:\/\/grow48.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/b4.webp 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Jelly Roll released \u201cLiar\u201d in 2024 as the second single from his album, Beautifully Broken. (Photo credit: Jelly Roll\/YouTube)<br \/>\n\u201cLiar\u201d was co-written by Jelly Roll and calls out the voice, telling him he isn\u2019t worth anything and trying to convince him to continue in his addictions. Jamal Roberts brought conviction and his own story to the performance.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to his performance, Roberts told Jelly Roll and mentor Ashanti that he wants to show the \u201cyoung fellas that you ain\u2019t gotta have a gun. You ain\u2019t got to sell drugs \u2026 Everybody can chase their dream and be a better person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jelly Roll couldn\u2019t hold back his tears as he listened to Jamal\u2019s rehearsal.<br \/>\n\u201cYou brought a tear to me, Jamal. Man, that wasn\u2019t a performance. You were testifying. I feel the pain in your voice. You can\u2019t teach that. I am your champion. You are representing a group of misrepresented people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jamals energy and conviction made for one of the most powerful performances of the night. Judge Lionel Richie told the singer that if he \u201chad passed the collection plate, I would have given all the money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carrie Underwood described the performance as \u201ca possession.\u201d Luke Bryan agreed. \u201cEvery time you sing, you sing like it might be the last time you ever sing. That\u2019s how you have to approach this business. You have to give it your all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Watch Jamal Roberts\u2019 incredible performance of \u201cLiar\u201d in the video below. And tune in Monday night (April 14) to see if he advances to the Top 20.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jamal Roberts Brings the Emotion with &#039;Liar&#039; by Jelly Roll \u2013 American Idol 2025\" width=\"790\" height=\"444\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gFc55crFqmU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jamal Roberts delivered one of the most emotional moments on the American Idol 2025 stage with his cover of Jelly Roll\u2019s \u201cLiar\u201d\u2014a performance that left the audience&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1942,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1945,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941\/revisions\/1945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}