Taya Smith

Best known as a worship leader, gospel singer, and lead vocalist for the Christian music collective Hillsong United, Taya Smith was born on May 10, 1989, in New South Wales, Australia. She became increasingly involved in her local church as a child, which sharpened her singing skills and laid the groundwork for her eventual career as a CCM vocalist. Under the direction of bandleader Joel Houston, Smith joined Hillsong United — one of the musical groups connected to the Australian megachurch Hillsong Church — during the early 2010s. The group scored a major hit with "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)," which appeared on the studio album Zion in 2013 and charted at Number 1 in Australia. Featuring Taya Smith on lead vocals, "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)" went quadruple-platinum in America, where it peaked at Number 1 on the Hot Christian Songs chart for a record-setting 61 weeks. At the GMA Dove Awards in 2014, the song won "Song of the Year," "Contemporary Christian Performance of the Year," "Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year," and "Worship Song of the Year." Smith toured heavily with the group and appeared on the subsequent albums Empires, which topped Billboard's Hot Christian Albums chart in 2015, and Wonder, which accomplished the same feat in 2017. Now billed as "Taya Gaukrodger," she also appeared on the live records People (2019) and The People Tour: Live from Madison Square Garden (2021), as well as Hillsong United's next studio record, Are We There Yet? (2022). Taya Gaukrodger also launched a long-awaited solo career in 2022 with "For All My Life," the lead single from her self-titled debut album, TAYA.

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