Mavis Staples, an 86-year-old soul singer from Chicago’s South Side, has won two Grammy Awards, bringing her career total to five. She was recognized for Best American Roots Performance for her cover of “Beautiful Strangers” by Kevin Morby and Best Americana Performance for a rendition of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed.” Both songs appear on her 2025 album, “Sad and Beautiful World,” released last year through the label ANTI-.
Greg Kot, former Tribune critic and author of “I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers, and the March Up Freedom’s Highway,” commented on the significance of Staples’ continued recognition. “It’s an indication that she’s still making incredibly vital music,” Kot said. It’s “a rarity for any artist in the latter period of their career.”
In a press release about her album, Staples stated, “I just have to deliver the compassion I feel. I want to share the song the way I feel it.”
Staples began performing at age 8 and has received multiple honors throughout her career. She is a Kennedy Center Honoree and has been inducted into several halls of fame. Her accolades include several Grammys as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award.
She comes from a background deeply rooted in activism. Her father, Pops Staples, was close friends with Martin Luther King Jr., and The Staple Singers performed as King’s opening act during his speeches in Chicago in the 1960s.
Kot highlighted how Chicago shaped Staples’ identity: “You talk about Chicago as sort of a melting pot — incredibly segregated, for sure — but also a place where she was exposed to a lot of music.” He described Staples as a “city girl” whose personal life and activism are closely linked to her work as an artist. “Chicago’s been a city that has given birth to a lot of performers where their personal life, their activism, their political engagement went hand in hand with who they were as people and as artists,” he said.
After her Grammy wins, Staples continues touring with performances scheduled in New York City; Portland, Oregon; Durham, North Carolina; concluding at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in May.
Kot reflected on Staples’ role in preserving history through music: “She didn’t want people to forget the history, forget where we’ve come from and how far we still have to go,” he said. “And I said, ‘Well, maybe a lot of people that you’re singing to now don’t know the history.’ And she said, ‘I will be the history.’”
Kot also described his long acquaintance with Staples: “The person you see on stage is really the person you see in life off stage.”
