Nnenna Freelon

Nnenna Freelon is an acclaimed jazz singer, composer, producer, and arranger whose career spans over three decades. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she grew up singing in her church community and later graduated from Simmons College in Boston, initially working in healthcare administration before devoting herself to music.

Freelon’s professional breakthrough came in the early 1990s: she released her debut album in 1992 and went on to record a string of well-regarded jazz albums under major labels. Over the years, she has earned multiple nominations from the Grammy Awards and collaborated or shared stages with jazz legends including Ray Charles, Ellis Marsalis, Al Jarreau, and George Benson, among others.

In recent years, after enduring profound personal loss — including the death of her husband, renowned architect Phil Freelon, in 2019 to ALS, and, shortly after, her sister Debbie in 2020, to cancer— Freelon turned her grief into a deep source of creative inspiration. In doing so, she expanded her artistry beyond performance: she launched a podcast, Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, where she uses musical storytelling, conversation, and personal reflections to navigate grief, loss, and healing. Parallel to the podcast, she wrote "Beneath the Skin of Sorrow: Improvisations on Loss." The book blends essays, poems, lyrics and reflections — treating grief as an improvisational journey, akin to jazz itself.

In 2025, Freelon released a deeply personal album, Beneath the Skin, her first album made up entirely of original songs. Through this body of work — alongside her book and podcast — she invites listeners into a raw, honest space of mourning, memory, love, resilience, and rebirth.