Tori Kelly Embraces Faith and Family on New Album, ‘God Must Really Love Me’

Michael Foust

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By Michael Foust, Crosswalk.com

Singer Tori Kelly says her newest album is both a reflection of her life and an expression of gratitude to God for the blessings she’s experienced – including the recent arrival of a newborn that has transformed her perspective.

Kelly’s sixth studio album, titled God Must Really Love Me, is scheduled for a June 12 release, with two tracks from it – Control and Dive – landing on platforms this Friday.

“I was pretty clear on what I wanted to say, which were three pillars: My faith, my marriage, and then motherhood,” Kelly told Variety. “I was like, this is the album and where I’m at. From there, it just really started taking shape.”

Tori Kelly and her husband, André Murillo, welcomed their first child last November, a boy they named Zayden Michael Murillo.

Variety describes the new album as an embrace of the “warm, acoustic-leaning R&B” that has long defined Kelly’s sound, following her 2024 album Tori, which leaned more heavily into Y2K-inspired pop and R&B.

“It feels good to look at my life and be like, this is my life. I love it. I’m so happy right now,” she told Variety. “That’s really why I wanted to call it ‘God Must Really Love Me,’ because when I took a step back and listened to the songs, it’s a feeling of gratitude, like look at these blessings in my life. God must really love me.”

Kelly has long been open about her faith, weaving themes of hope, worship, and trust in God into her music. This summer, she’s touring with Forrest Frank on his Jesus Generation Tour, a 29-city run that also features Cory Asbury and The Figs.

The birth of her son provided inspiration for much of the album, she said. Just 10 days after welcoming Zayden into the world, she was recording song ideas into her phone as creativity began flowing rapidly, she told Variety. Within two months, she was back in the studio with collaborators Tommy King and Dan Farber, recording most of God Must Really Love Me in a two-week span.

In fact, Zayden can be heard on a few of the tracks, Variety said.

She wants the new project to have a positive impact on fans.

“The title is ‘God Must Really Love Me,’ but at the end of the day, I would love it if people felt that for themselves too,” she said. “Feel how loved they are, how special they are, inspire them to look at their lives and see what they can be grateful for, spend time with the people that they love. It’s definitely my slow-down type of album. Let’s take a deep breath. Let’s go outside, touch some grass, and be grateful for what we have.”

Forrest Frank Announces Massive ‘Jesus Generation Tour’ with Tori Kelly, Cory Asbury

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

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