Religion Unplugged

🎤 Preach it, Jelly Roll: Emotional singer celebrates another big award 🔌

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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged

Jelly Roll is on a roll.

The “Son of a Sinner” artist — whose songs feature raw, religious lyrics that wrestle with his troubled past — won another big award Thursday night.

The rapper-turned-country-rocker claimed the Academy of Country Music’s music event of the year prize — with Lainey Wilson — for their collaboration on his smash hit “Save Me.”

“I’m going to keep this short and sweet because Jelly’s going to get up here and preach,” quipped Wilson, who also won the ACM’s female artist of the year award and the night’s top prize as entertainer of the year. 

“Thank you so much, Jelly, for asking me to be a part of such an important song,” she added, as the crowd at the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas, cheered. “This song right here speaks to so many people who feel like they’ve never had a voice, and I’m so thankful that you are a part of country music. Get up here and talk.”

Jelly Roll — a flashy cross necklace hanging down his chest, accentuating the familiar cross tattoo on his face — smiled and shrugged.

Then the singer did exactly what Wilson, clad in a red cowboy hat, predicted he would.

He preached.

“I’m going to try not to get emotional, but no pun intended … this song saved me,” said the 39-year-old Jelly Roll, who skyrocketed to fame in the past few years after decades in and out of juvenile detention and prison.

“I was in a dark place. I wrote it from my soul. I knew people would connect with it,” he said, shaking his right index finger to emphasize his points.

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This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.

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