Country singer LeAnn Rimes released her new album god's work - intentionally spelled with a lower case 'g' - this month and says the album title is a "reclamation of God for herself."
Rimes began working on the album three years ago and described the 12-track compilation as "genre-bending" because it features various artists, including Ziggy Marley, Mickey Guyton, Aloe Blacc, Ben Harper, Robert Randolph, and Sheila E., among others.
"If you look at Ziggy, Ben, Ledisi, Mickey and Sheila, I feel like we all have similar hearts and minds and are putting out similar messages into the world," Rimes said in an interview with Forbes. "So, it feels like a community of people and the album really speaks to that."
The publication said Rimes pegged god's work as "a reclamation of God for herself," with the singer explaining that the lowercase 'g' "represents the duality of this record and where humanity meets spirit."
"I kind of ran from the word God for a long time," Rimes told Forbes. "I was raised Southern Baptist and my frustration was we're brought up with these messages of love, acceptance, community and forgiveness, but no one's living them to the fullest."
She added that her upbringing in the church led her to "question how we're allowing creation to work through us for a better world," adding that she wanted her new music to help bring people together by providing "hope and healing."
"God can mean different things to different people. To me, it inserts the word 'love,' the word 'creation,'" Rimes continued. "I saw somewhere where people were saying it's called god's work, so it's a religious record. It's whatever it is to you."
"Art is so subjective, and we project upon what we hear through our own experience. Whatever it moves in you, whatever you hear, that's what it is."
Rimes won her first Grammy at age 14, and holds the record for the youngest solo artist ever to win a Grammy. The "How Do I Live" singer has spent the summer on tour performing her greatest hits along with songs from "god's work."
"Even when people didn't know the music they seemed to be connecting and jamming to it already," Rimes told Forbes. "When we played god's work it's like we turned the whole audience into a choir and by the end, they were all singing 'We are God's work' then applauding afterward. I think it's empowering."
"I wanted to touch on the collective experience we were having and some of the complexities of that. I got to dig into grief, anger, rage and hope, just a myriad of emotions we all go through in this human experience."
The platinum recording artist said she wants listeners to discover something "new about themselves, and the complexities of life in the process."
In 2019, Rimes caused a stir online after she shared a photo of a new tattoo located on her inner forearm written in lowercase cursive that read "god's work."
The tattoo didn't go over well, and many commenters asked by God wasn't capitalized.
In 2012, it was reported that Rimes had attended Life Change Community Church in California along with reality TV star Kim Kardashian.
