Full Sail Stories

Full Sail Music Business and Creative Writing MFA grad Dominique Jones, aka DOE, was in a unique position when she found out that her album, Heart of a Human, won Best Contemporary Christian album at the 2025 Grammys.

“I was running around the airport with my six-month-old son strapped to my body [when the Grammys were happening]. I glanced at my phone and saw a text from my manager and saw the words, ‘cried tears,’ and I immediately knew. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I won’… I was just so thankful,” she shares.

The singer-songwriter is no stranger to accolades – she has eight Grammy nominations, two Dove Awards, and multiple Stellar Award nominations – but her Grammy win was a special high point in a career defined by hard work and faith. From her days singing at church to her recent collaboration with Oscar- and Grammy-winning artist Jon Batiste, DOE has found success and fulfillment in the music industry.

DOE grew up surrounded by gospel music – her father was a pastor, and she regularly performed onstage at church. When she was 17, her family started their own group called forever JONES, and their first album was nominated for two Grammys. But DOE still wanted to round out who she was as a businessperson and a creative, so she signed up for Full Sail’s Music Business  program as she pursued her solo career.

“When I went independent, I built my own website because Full Sail taught me how to do that,” she says. “It gave me the tools to help me easily build my website and manage emails and do bookings… And there was an entertainment law class, so I had probably a better understanding of contracts than maybe most people at my stage of artistry.

“I am really thankful for my Music Business degree,” she continues. “It allowed me to see the layers [of the music business] that people don't really know are there and ways that you can win and ways that you can fight for your music.”

When it comes to songwriting, DOE puts her heart into her lyrics (“My journal is songwriting”), and returning to Full Sail for her Creative Writing MFA helped her find new ways to express herself.

“Although there was no concentration in music at all [in the Creative Writing MFA program], they concentrated on descriptive writing, which stretched me as a songwriter… My thesis was a screenplay, and you have to really help the camera see what’s happening internally with a character. So that really helped me as a writer to learn how to dig for the right way to say things,” DOE says.

With more than 20 singles released in the last 10 years, plus two EPs and two full-length albums, DOE has spent plenty of time finding the best ways to speak through songwriting. She’s also been through a collaborative writing process with other artists, including Jon Batiste, who played the piano and co-wrote the bridge on her recent single “Black Boy.”

As she makes new music, DOE’s continuing to stretch herself creatively – she recently recorded her first live worship album, and she aspires to make that album speak to her audience the way it speaks to her.

“This is the most excited I've ever been about an album. I love recording in a live setting because there are actually people there and eyes that I can look into… So that’s one of the waves I’m riding right now, hoping it does really well and is meaningful to the world the way that I feel like it should be.”