Article By Rebecca Johnson // EEW Magazine // Marriage + Music + Faith

Fantasia Barrino may be an R&B singer, but she has not forgotten about her gospel roots and is vocal about her serious relationship with Jesus Christ—something that influences her career and marriage.

The GRAMMY® Award-winning vocalist stopped by Power 105.1 in New York City for a candid chat about how she learned to submit to her husband and why prayer is so important to her.

The prayer conversation began with the 35-year-old North Carolina native asking “The Breakfast Club” co-host DJ Envy if he ever prayed with his wife. When the popular syndicated radio personality said he did each morning before leaving home, Barrino stood up and saluted.

“I salute you because we need more of that,” said the artist who is gearing up to independently release her new album, Sketchbook, in October—her first since parting ways with RCA Records. “We need more men to stand up and lead the way. Most women are trying to be the leader. That’s why you can’t find a man. You can’t be the king in the house. Fall back and let your man lead the way.”

Though the American Idol alum easily dished out that advice during her Tuesday, September 17th sit-down, she confessed that it was a difficult-to-learn the lesson.

 “I had to go through it. When I first met my husband, I was taking care of everything. I took care of my whole family. It was me,” she explained.

Barrino, who wed her spouse Kendall Taylor in 2015, just 3 weeks after meeting him in Charlotte, NC, said, “My husband’s a felon, but he turned it all around and he owns his own business. And so, I wasn’t used to that. I was a pop-off—quick with the mouth, smart. But it took a man like him to sit me down, look me in my eyes and talk to me like I was supposed to be talked to, and say, ‘I’m here now. You don’t have to do all of that. Pass it over to me and let me take care of it.’”

The happy wife, who tied the knot at a North Carolina courthouse away from public view, said Taylor asked for a pre-nuptial agreement so she would know he was not after her money, but just wanted her. She said the two also waited until marriage for sex.

Barrino, who revealed she made a “small list” asking God to give her a man with specific qualities, said, “All the things that were on my list, he was. He was that.”

Although things are now on the right track for the Rock Soul artist, DJ Envy noted that she has overcome many “trials and tribulations,” from troubled relationships to a suicide attempt, tax troubles to career lows. When he asked the “Lose to Win” songstress how she made it through, she first pointed upward and then said, “God.”

“I was always grounded,” Barrino told him. “Church was where I started and I never got into the game for the perks, the limelight, the number ones…I just knew that singing was my ministry.”

Now she prioritizes her faith in a way she once didn’t. During the revealing broadcast, she remembered one time when she was “on the road for so long” that she lost touch with God and “stopped praying.”

Back then, she called her mother, Diane Barrino, a minister, and said she felt distant from the Lord. After that, Barrino went home for a while and repaired her broken connection with God, and she has been maintaining that relationship ever since.

Watch the full interview below.

*Warning: The video includes sexually explicit language and some profanity. If that is offensive to you EEW Magazine Online recommends that you do not watch*