Kirbi, a 24-year-old singer from Florence, Alabama, earned high praise on this week’s episode of “The Voice” after performing “Hard Fought Hallelujah” by Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll.
Following her performance of the hit song, the Team Niall contestant, whose real name is Savanna Kirby, wrote on Instagram that she “can’t express how genuinely thankful from the bottom of my heart that I am,” adding, “Wow. I feel so blessed to have made it to this point.”
“Singing ‘Hard Fought Hallelujah’ on that stage was an experience I can’t put in words,” she wrote. “That song means something deep to me, and to a lot of others, which is one reason I chose to sing it.”
The Nov. 24 episode closed out season 28’s Knockouts, with Kirbi securing a spot in the playoffs. She faced off against four-chair turn Dustin Dale Gaspard in Team Niall’s Knockout round and moved forward.
Ahead of her performance, the singer revealed she’s a longtime fan of Jelly Roll, who later collaborated with Lake on the song, and that she once opened for one of his concerts.
Her coach, Niall Horan, praised the performance as “unbelievable” and told her, “I feel like I’m gonna pass out. That was your best performance to date, without a shadow of a doubt. It was beautiful to watch, beautiful to listen to, you just smashed it.”
Horan added, “Her performance tonight was just undeniable. There was no way she could sing like that, give the emotion that she gave, and leave this competition.” He said Kirbi “absolutely deserves to be in my top four” and added that he is “so excited going into the Playoffs.”
Other coaches echoed the praise. Snoop Dogg called it “the perfect song for you,” while Reba McEntire described the performance as “very emotional.” Michael Bublé told Kirbi, “You understand who you are, where you want to go. You have the guts to take on songs that seem like they may not be in your lane.”
Kirbi, an outspoken Christian, moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2023 to pursue music full time. She previously impressed the judges with a blind-audition rendition of for KING + COUNTRY’s Grammy-winning hit “God Only Knows,” earning a four-chair turn.
Earlier in the season, she also performed Lauren Daigle’s “You Say” during the Oct. 20 Battles round, later posting, “The message of this song hit me hard. God has been so good and gracious to me when I don’t show myself the same grace.”
She added, “Thank you Jesus for bringing me this far, and thank you so much to every person who has cheered me on and encouraged me.”
To date, “Voice” contestants Aubrey Nicole, Ava Nat, Ralph Edwards, Aiden Ross, Max Chambers, Toni Lorene, DEK of Hearts, Rob Cole, Ryan Mitchell, Trinity, Aaron Nichols, Jazz McKenzie and Mindy Miller have already secured Playoff spots.
Kirbi’s success is part of a broader trend on “The Voice,” where faith-forward performances and openly Christian artists have seen heightened visibility in recent years.
Contestants frequently choose worship anthems, gospel standards and contemporary Christian hits for high-stakes rounds, and several have spoken on-air about their faith journeys or church upbringings.
In 2020, Todd Tilghman, a pastor from Mississippi, was crowned winner of “The Voice,” including in his finale performance MercyMe’s crossover hit “I Can Only Imagine.”
CCM artist Bodie, who previously served as a worship leader at Oceans Church in Irvine, recently told The Christian Post his path to Christian music might have been unlikely without his breakout run on season 22 of “The Voice.”
He advanced to the finale with his cover of Brandon Lake’s “Gratitude,” a performance that revealed a side of him his fans hadn’t seen before.
“I’d always been a worship leader alongside making secular music,” he said. “Singing ‘Gratitude’ in the finale was really the start of God working on my heart. That moment on ‘The Voice’ was like a magnifying glass; it gave me a platform, but it also set me on a new trajectory.”
The artist, who was 30 when he competed on the show, said that being older than many contestants gave him an advantage.
“I already knew who I was as a man, as a Christian, as an artist,” he said. “I had a clear sense of how I wanted to be perceived. The show wasn’t my big break, but it gave me the opportunity to grow my audience and capture people’s attention. And then God redirected my heart.”
“The Voice” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. EST/PST on NBC, with episodes streaming the next day on Peacock.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
