Lady A's lead vocalist Hillary Scott started watching The Chosen with her teenage daughter, and the series sent her back to some of her favorite Bible stories. One of them, about a woman who reaches through a crowd to touch the hem of Jesus' garment, became the starting point for a song she would co-write.

That song, "I Love The One," arrived Friday (Sept 25) through 5&2 Studios, the company behind the series, and Capitol Christian Music Group. Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood of Lady A share it with Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men, and the arrangement puts all six singers into one harmony. It's the third single from Songs Inspired by The Chosen: Seasons 1-5, an album due Oct. 30.

Boyz II Men tied the collaboration to the group's own staying power. "After more than 30 years together, we don't believe this journey has been accidental," the group said in a statement released with the single. The same statement called the song an expression of faith and gratitude, and it described the session with Lady A as a chance to bring two musical worlds into one room.

In the Gospel of Mark, the woman in the crowd had been bleeding for 12 years and had spent everything she owned on physicians who left her worse off. She approached from behind, touched the cloth, and came forward only when Jesus turned and asked who had done it.

The Philadelphia half of the lineup got its break in March 1989, when four young men from the city slipped backstage to audition for members of New Edition. They sang "Can You Stand the Rain" for Michael Bivins, and he liked what he heard. Nathan Morris sang baritone, Michael McCary covered bass, and Stockman and Wanya Morris split the tenor parts. Stockman later remembered that after the deal came through, "our managers had to tell us to shut up," because the four of them never stopped singing.

Harmony carried the group through the decade that followed, starting with an a cappella take on the Five Satins' 1956 doo-wop standard "In the Still of the Nite." L.A. Reid and Babyface wrote and produced "End of the Road" for the 1992 Boomerang soundtrack, and the ballads kept coming after it. Their duet with Mariah Carey, "One Sweet Day," held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 16 weeks across 1995 and 1996. Over its career the group logged 50 total weeks at the top of that chart and sold 64 million albums. After McCary left in 2003, the three remaining members kept touring and recording as a trio, and that trio is the one on this record.

Lady A and Boyz II Men

Lady A came up the same way on a smaller scale, with Scott and Kelley trading lead vocals across most of the catalog while Haywood fills in the third part. The trio has collected 11 chart-topping singles and more than 9 billion global streams. "Need You Now" is certified 12-times platinum, and the group has won seven Grammy Awards along with three straight years as Vocal Group of the Year at both the ACM and CMA Awards.

Scott also brings a gospel credit of her own. In 2016 she recorded Love Remains with her mother, Linda Davis, her father, Lang Scott, and her sister, Rylee, with Ricky Skaggs producing. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, the family won Best Contemporary Christian Music Album, and its single "Thy Will" took the performance and song category. Scott wrote "Thy Will" after a miscarriage in the fall of 2015, as she told the Recording Academy in her account of the sessions.

For "I Love The One," Haywood's account of the recording dwells on the arrangement and hands most of the credit to the Philadelphia side. He praised the attention to detail Boyz II Men brought as each member worked through his individual part. He also said the completed six-part harmony gave the artists chills when they first heard it back. "You feel its lyrics tenfold," he said of the moment their voices were added.

The lyric video sets that recording against the series itself, cutting between studio footage of the six vocalists and scenes of miracles from The Chosen. The press materials list the song's themes as suffering, healing, hope and faith. Boyz II Men's statement leans on the show's title, with the group reading its own three decades together as evidence of having been chosen for a purpose.

The single lands in a year when Boyz II Men had already been booked into country settings twice before this release came together on a Christian label. The group appeared with Cody Johnson at Stagecoach, the California country festival, and helped headline Nashville's nationally televised America 250 celebration.

Each of those bookings put the trio in front of listeners who buy Lady A records. "I Love The One" reaches that audience again through a faith series whose first five seasons stream on Prime Video. The project's schedule follows the show's calendar, with the album arriving Oct. 30 and the two-part Season 6 premiere streaming Nov. 15. A feature film follows in theaters on March 12.

The Name on the Other Side of the Credit

In June 2020, as protests over George Floyd's killing spread across the country, the trio then called Lady Antebellum dropped the second word of its name. The band cited the word's ties to slavery and began releasing music as Lady A. Anita White, a Black blues singer based in Seattle, had been recording and performing under that name for decades before the switch.

Talks between the two sides collapsed within weeks. The band had held a trademark on the shortened name for years before the rename, while White had never filed for one. The band asked a Nashville federal court to affirm its right to the name after saying White's team had demanded $10 million. White countersued, seeking $10 million to rebrand and pledging half of it to Black Lives Matter, and she summed up her position plainly: "I wanted my name." In January 2022 both sides filed a joint motion to dismiss every claim, with the terms kept private and each party covering its own legal fees.