Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer and songwriter celebrated for her deep contralto voice and genre-defying style, died peacefully at home in Jackson, Mississippi (her birthplace in the American South), on Tuesday morning, surrounded by family and friends. Named America's best singer by Time magazine in 2001, Wilson was renowned for weaving blues-rooted jazz together with folk, R&B, country and pop, earning Grammy wins for the albums New Moon Daughter (1997) and Loverly (2009) and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master designation in 2022. Musician Jon Batiste and Jackson's mayor John Horhn were among those paying tribute, with Horhn calling her "a singular musical voice" who "carried the sound, spirit and history of Mississippi" throughout a career that shaped generations of artists.