At a time when most of her friends were graduating from college and beginning their careers, Rachael Lampa was rounding the corner on the seventh year of her professional journey. The powerhouse vocalist signed a record deal at age 14 and went on to become one of Christian music’s youngest phenomenons in the early 2000s when the genre was hungry for positive alternatives to the mainstream female superstars of the day.
Her debut album, “Live For You,” spawned four No. 1 hits: “Blessed,” “Shaken,” “God Loves You” and the title-cut. Additionally, the then teenager quickly found herself caught up in a whirlwind of media appearances with high-profile performances on “The Tonight Show” and “The View” and interviews with “USA Today,” “PEOPLE” and “Seventeen.” Moreover, Lampa was invited to Rome to perform at World Youth Day, and she recorded an original song for 2002 blockbuster hit “A Walk To Remember.” In addition, she shared the stage with everyone from Amy Grant and TobyMac to Destiny’s Child and Boyz II Men.
As Lampa was ascending the charts, Stacie Orrico and Plus One were also making their mark in an era ruled by teenage pop. Together, the three fresh acts became the Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and *NSYNC of Christian music. But much like their secular counterparts, Lampa and her peers amassed an unprecedented amount of notoriety in a short amount of time.
As Lampa entered her 20s, the pressure that had slowly been building over the past seven years became too much to bear. “My identity was just in this big bowl of music and God and people’s voices and opinions,” Lampa observes of her 21-year-old self. “And I was like, ‘Wait, wait, I’ve got to find God’s voice in all of this, and I have to get rid of everything else around it to get there.’ There was just a feeling of needing to let it go and seeing what would happen and if I’d even be OK if I let it go.”
So Lampa did what few other starry-eyed 20-somethings on the fast-track to fame would do: She quit. Without a Plan B, she took a job as a nanny.
“The important people around me did everything they could to protect me. My mom, my brother, my family — they were amazing. I never felt like I had to do anything,” the Dove Award winner shares. “I felt the freedom to be like, ‘Sorry, I’m dropping this entire thing.’ And that’s a testament to the people around me saying, ‘Sure, if that’s what you feel God’s telling you, then great.’ And, from there, it was about 20-ish years of trying to figure out what’s next.”
For the better part of the next two decades, Lampa released music here and there — sometimes in partnership with a label, sometimes independently. Her musical profile went from full-speed-ahead to a crawl — a jarring pace she desperately needed to decipher who she was apart from the thing she loved most.
Having mastered the art of harmony by age 4, Lampa was raised in a strong Catholic household in Colorado, yet faith-centric music wasn’t the soundtrack of her youth. “I didn’t grow up on Christian music. I grew up on Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and all that soulful music,” she shares. “And whether I knew it or not, I was worshipping. Every time I would sing, I’d just go to another place. I would just get lost. And that’s the true purity of the gift God gave me.”
Lampa admits singing lost some of its wonder when she started doing it for a living. Following a hiatus from the limelight, however, she was invited to use her vocal gift in a different way. Lampa soon found herself back on a tour bus again — this time, as a background vocalist for Jordin Sparks while the “American Idol” alum toured the country with The Jonas Brothers and Britney Spears. Years later, she rediscovered her voice while on the road backing Hozier. Her stint with the acclaimed Irish folk-rock musician provided numerous opportunities for her to tour both domestically and internationally, as well as support Hozier during appearances at Glastonbury Festival, on “Saturday Night Live” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and as part of performances on telecasts for the American Music Awards and the GRAMMYs®.
“Singing background was actually this really unexpected way for me to just get lost in singing oohs and aahs like a child again. The spotlight was off, the pressure was off,” Lampa remarks. “I got to see the world, and there was a lot of cool stuff that happened in that time. I was getting to sing, and I was getting to be in community and getting to be around such beautiful people with beautiful stories.”
Lampa eventually came off the road when she and her husband, Brendan, welcomed their first child in 2016. Jax’s birth brought some balance and routine to Lampa’s life she didn’t even realize she needed.
Even today, the songstress — who gave birth to her second son, Leo, in October 2022 — simply thinks of herself as a wife and mom before she ever considers herself a well-known singer. “My little guy, my oldest son, I think he was a big reason why I felt like I could pursue music again and hold it loosely, because my family was intact. I had a sense of home and a sense of balance I didn’t have before,” she reflects. “And so partly having a family — having Brendan, my husband; Jax, my kid; and now my baby, Leo, it’s like this anchor. It’s easier to place everything.”
Lampa’s return to music has defied all odds. Earlier this year, the mother of two crowned the top of the Christian radio charts for the first time in 22 years with “Perfectly Loved (feat. TobyMac).” Much to her surprise, the chart-topping hit won Breakout Single of the Year honors at the 2023 K-LOVE Fan Awards back in June, and it’s currently nominated for Song of the Year at the 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards.
Ironically — or perhaps divinely — “Perfectly Loved” is a song about identity. On the piano in her backyard-shed-turned-studio, Lampa plucked out the words and melody she needed to hear, but she didn’t pen the song simply for herself. She wrote it for the women she met at a local prison in Nashville where she and some friends, including TobyMac’s wife, Amanda, ministered regularly prior to COVID. “I was in there three to five days a week working with women in this prison program we created called The Wild Ones. When I started ‘Perfectly Loved,’ it was for them,” Lampa shares. “Every week, we would just talk about the ‘wild ones’ of the Bible. We’d talk about how Jesus’ love was wild and radical.”
She eventually finished the song with Andrew Ripp and Ethan Hulse — dear friends from her small group, who encouraged Lampa that there might be an audience for the meaningful ballad beyond the prison walls. With zero expectations, Lampa sent the single to radio. “When ‘Perfectly Loved’ came out,” she remembers, “I was just in the depths of being a mom to a 4-year-old and coaching his soccer team.”
In many ways, her sophomore single, “Somebody To You,” feels like a sister recording to “Perfectly Loved.” Both tracks tackle a similar theme of self-worth.
Ripp and Hulse again hold co-writing credit with Lampa on “Somebody To You,” which also features Ripp on shared vocals. The professional partnership came about so organically, Lampa says her musical comeback was “honestly accidental.” In addition to their Tuesday night small group, Lampa sees Ripp and Hulse — and their wives — multiple times a week. They celebrate their kids’ birthdays together; and earlier this year, the Ripps and the McCarthys (Lampa’s married name), vacationed together in Santa Barbara. Lampa is the godmother to Ripp’s two children, and vice versa.
“God has given me this gift to be able to write songs with my friends. Music is not just this little random part of my life,” Lampa insists. “I’m doing it with the people I do everything else in life with. The people I work with are people I really like and love. And now, when success happens, I’m just having a party with my friends, and that feels more like how it should be.”
Even with all the surprising doors that are opening these days as she dips her toe back into a full-fledged solo career, Lampa confesses she’s turning down good opportunities to prioritize her family. “I love that my kids are the reason why I’m saying ‘no’ to things I used to almost worship when I was younger. I would just idolize these opportunities,” she admits. “And it’s the easiest thing to pass up now.”
Alongside special guest Blessing Offor, Lampa is out on Ripp’s “Big Feelings Tour” this fall — an opportunity that felt like an easy ‘yes.’ When she’s home, most Monday nights she can be found in the heart of downtown Nashville cooking and distributing food to the city’s homeless community in conjunction with People Loving Nashville (PLN), a nonprofit started by Lampa and her three siblings.
“To me, it’s just as much my personal life as it is a ministry. I think it’s just all one thing — it’s relationships and friendships. It doesn’t feel like this big production or this big thing that we’re working toward. It’s just being faithful and showing up and honoring the organization that has come around this idea my brother had 15 years ago,” she says of PLN. “It was always supposed to be a small thing. For years, we collected money in a jar and bought what we could with that money. And God has just given us more, and it’s been something where we are just watching God take off with it, and we’re just trying to keep up.”
That must be comparable to what it feels like to be making music again. “Does this feel like a second chance?” Lampa asks rhetorically. “I think it just feels like a continuation of letting go.”
