Jordan Mackenzie Smith is an American singer, songwriter, and musician from Harlan, Kentucky. Smith began singing in his church choir and went on to study at Lee University. In 2015, he received national recognition when he won the 9th season of The Voice Vocal Competition. During his tenure with The Voice, he was the show’s first artist of the season to reach No. 1 in pop song sales on the iTunes Store and set new sales milestones on the Billboard charts.
In 2022, he represented Kentucky in the American Song Contest with the song “Sparrow”, placing 3rd. Smith gained national attention in 2015 during his participation in the ninth season of The Voice. His performance of “Chandelier” at the audition caused all four coaches to turn in their chairs; Smith decided to become part of the Adam Levine team after Levine told him, “I think you’re the most important person that’s ever been on this show.”
Smith had already auditioned for the show once but was turned down. Even when he was accepted into the show, he had his doubts until the reactions started pouring in. “I [thought] ‘Wow, people see something in me that I honestly didn’t think was there.’ I thought maybe I fooled everyone! It took me a lot of persuasion to finally start seeing myself as a performer and artist.”
Smith said that it was his performance of “Halo” during the live playoffs that allowed him to believe he “had something to say as an artist”. [8] According to Slate, Smith was called a “unicorn” during the show because his voice is “genderless and expansive… as ambiguous as it is precise, rapidly scaling and penetrating through the octaves.
