2025 Year In Review
2025 was another year full of blessings and confirmations! This beautiful quote from the Baha’i Writings is one that I focused on a lot throughout the year:
“O MY SERVANT! The best of men are they that earn a livelihood by their calling and spend upon themselves and upon their kindred for the love of God, the Lord of all worlds.” – Bahá’u’lláh
Creating and sharing music has felt like a calling for most of my adulthood. But only within the past two years have I been able to truly earn a livelihood through my creativity. And with a wife and three young children, the motivation to earn for myself and my kindred has only continued to grow.
Knowing that finding one’s calling—and earning a livelihood in service to humanity—is itself a divine teaching has been incredibly empowering. It has encouraged me to continually turn to God throughout this process, and the confirmations along the way have been truly amazing.
As the year comes to a close, I always find it meaningful to pause, reflect, and share inspiration with others. So here are 10 highlights from 2025—spanning music, family, and service—that I’m deeply grateful for.
1) “The Dream” – A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 💙
The year started off incredibly meaningful, as I had the bounty of honoring one of my changemaker heroes: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!
I was commissioned to create a song to honor Dr. King for MLK Day to share at the 27th Annual Paradise Valley MLK Day Celebration.
The song, “The Dream (A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)”, featuring the amazing Ayana Butterfly, was released on MLK Day. In addition to the Paradise Valley MLK Day Celebration, I also had the honor of performing the song at The City of Phoenix MLK Festival at Margaret Hance Park. It was a truly special day!
Check out the official visualizer for the song here:
2) The ‘Better World’ Concert Tour Continues 🎤
2025 marked my largest year yet for live performances—50 ‘Better World’ concerts in a single year! Since its inception in late 2023, the ‘Better World’ tour has now had 89 concerts with over 3900 total attendees. It has been to 29 states across the United States 🇺🇸, and 2025 marked the first international stop of the tour, reaching Ontario, Canada! 🇨🇦
One of the biggest joys of the concerts has been collaborating with others artists in the different regions I’ve visited, including Peyt Spencer and Javad Luckey in the Pacific Northwest, jeph.ilosopher in the Mid-Atlantic, Brian in Midwest/South-Central, Jose Villanueva in Texas, and now Karim Rushdy up in Ontario, Canada!
The concerts blend elevated conversation, community building, and uplifting music to inspire humanity to build a better world. I’m so excited to continue the tour into 2026!
Here’s a map of all the concerts from the ‘Better World’ tour, thus far (click the map for specific details and photos of each concert):
Check out some highlights from the ‘Better World’ concert:
If you’d like to experience my “Better World” concert in your community, please fill out the concert request form here:
👉🏽 Bring Colby Jeffers & The ‘Better World’ Concert To Your Community
3) Continued Growth in the Reach of My Music ⬆️
I see my music as a service to humanity, so I put a lot of effort into promoting my music so that it can reach as many ears (and hearts) as possible! Since I started releasing music in 2012, I’ve been able to expand my reach every year, and 2025 marked the biggest reach yet!
Across all music platforms, my music was streamed over 481,000 times this past year (that’s almost half a million!). I’m excited to continue growing and expanding my reach next year, and God willing, have an even bigger impact on the souls of humanity!
Here’s my 2025 streaming stats (combined streams from Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora)
4) I Wrote My First Book 📘
While I’ve written 8 albums worth of music over the years, in 2025 I ventured into new creative territory, writing my first book!
The book was inspired by all the insights and reflections from the ‘Better World’ concert tour, and is titled “Building a Better World: 5 Pillars for Transforming Yourself and Humanity”. It is a blend of self-help, auto-biography, and spiritual manual for personal and societal transformation and I’m so excited to share it!
It’s in the final stages of review/editing, and I plan to release it in early 2026!
5) Another Successful Kickstarter 🙌🏽
The reason I’ve been able to consistently put out so much music over the years is because of my amazingly generous fans and supporters! Crowdfunding feels less like fundraising and more like community-building, and I’m always moved by the trust and encouragement people place in my creative endeavors.
This year we were able to successfully fund my latest project, my ‘Better World’ album and book! The album is a compilation of the songs I’ve performed at the ‘Better World’ concerts. It features some brand-new songs, as well as several remixed versions of favorites from my catalogue. The book is the one I just referenced!
The production of the album and book are very close to completion, and will both be released very soon!
Here’s a video where I breakdown the new project:
6) New Music Releases 🎶
While I wasn’t able to release as much new music this year as I had hoped (I have a BUNCH of music currently in production), I did put out a few new songs this year. In addition to “The Dream”, I dropped 3 of the songs that will be featured from my upcoming ‘Better World’ album:
- “Change The World (Remix)” – This is a remixed version of my first ever song release, “Change The World” (the original was a collaboration with my dear friend, Awu). This new version is the one I perform at my ‘Better World’ concerts, and is a bit more uptempo and high energy.
Listen to “Change The World (Remix)” here:
- “NBA (Noble Being Always) (Remix)” – Another remixed version of a song I perform at my ‘Better World’ concerts. It’s a song about living a spiritual life, through the metaphor of basketball! This version features Peyt Spencer, one of my concert collaborators, who is also a huge basketball fan, making him a perfect for the remix!
Listen to “NBA (Noble Being Always) (Remix)” ft. Peyt Spencer here:
- “I Believe (Remix)” – This is also a remix of a song from my debut album with Awu, set to a new beat, which I perform at the ‘Better World’ concerts. The song explores the oneness of God and religion.
Listen to “I Believe (Remix)” here:
7) Song Features & Collaborations 🤝
In addition to my own song releases, this year also included a few meaningful collaborations:
- I was featured on a song called “Serenity Rap” by my spiritual bro, jeph.ilosopher. The song explores spiritual healing.
Listen to “Serenity Rap” here:
- Another one of my songs was featured on the Hip Hop Sessions program of the YouTube channel Baha’i Inspired (I had 2 of my songs featured in 2024). This time it was a live version of my song “Springtime” featuring the amazing Diversoul and Andrea McLean.
Watch “Springtime” on Hip Hop Sessions here:
- I was also invited back by Tiny Souls, a media company focused on early childhood development, to create a new song centered on spiritual attentiveness and emotional awareness, titled “Listening Check”. (This is my 4th song contribution to Tiny Souls‘ amazing music catalogue for kids and parents)
Listen to “Listening Check” here:
8) Press & Media Coverage 📰
It’s always a super cool feeling being featured on the news or radio! In 2025, I had the bounty of being featured in 2 separate news articles, as well as one radio broadcast!
- Carla Hinton from The Oklahoman newspaper did a spotlight on my ‘Better World’ concert in Edmond, OK.
You can read the article here: ‘Change maker rapper’ hopes concert will spread message of making a ‘Better World’
- The Director of Arizona Interfaith Movement, Albert Celoza, interviewed me for the “Golden Rule Moments” section in the AZ Central newspaper, which was prompted after a performance of my song “Change The World” at the 2025 Golden Rule Awards Celebration at the Tempe Center For The Arts.
You can read the article here: “Wrapping the world with love” published in AzCentral
Watch a clip of my performance at the 2025 Golden Rule Awards Celebration here:
- KRDP radio host, Gabriel Bey, interviewed me on the “Rise” program, which spotlights emerging artists and musicians from metro Phoenix and across Arizona. The interview was prompted after another member of the KRDP team (DJ Smiley) enjoyed my performance of “The Dream” at the City of Phoenix MLK Day festival.
Listen to the radio interview here: Colby Jeffers shares how his faith and activism informs his music on “Rise”
9) My Kids’ Amazing Music 🔥
I continued to be amazed at the incredible creativity of my children!
My oldest son, Noble, was inspired to make a song about his abundant love for his brothers and cousins. After making a beat himself and writing some lyrics (with a little assistance from me), he decided to also invite his little brother, Justice, and his cousins, Shayden and Zakai, to record their vocals on the song.
After completing the recording, they also decided to all created a music video together. The masterpiece is called “It’s Always Better With Cousins”.
It turned out super epic, and ended up going mega viral on Instagram, racking up 600,000 views, resonating with so many people on a number of levels!
You can check out “It’s Always Better With Cousins” here:
And here is a SUPER SWEET photo recently taken of Noble, Justice, Shayden, and Zakai (they love each other so much!)
Justice, who had 3 separate Pokémon inspired songs go viral in 2024, continued his viral spree in 2025.
After taking a month of swimming lessons over the summer, and thoroughly enjoying being in the water, he got inspired to make another Pokémon song all about “water type” Pokémon.
He came up with the song name “Waterlution” (inspired to continue the chain of his “Evolution” songs, but with a creative spin). The song also went viral on Instagram and TikTok, racking up a combined 500,000 views.
You can check out “Waterlution” here:
10) Family, Love, & Service ❤️
While all the progress and confirmations I’ve received in my creative endeavors are nothing short of incredible, what I’m most grateful for is the loving family I have been blessed with!
My wife, Mallory, and I reached 12 years of marriage (and quickly approach 13, as our wedding anniversary is January 5th!), and it has been such a joy to watch our 3 children, Noble (age 8), Justice (age 5), and Cyrus (age 2) continue to grow and blossom physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, creatively, and spiritually!
These precious souls make life so much more enjoyable, eventful, rewarding, and plain wonderful!
Beyond my immediate family, we are also so blessed to have my parents, siblings, and nephews nearby, which has been a continual source of love and support, keeping all of our spirits strengthened!
With so many young children in our family, our service to the community has also shifted over the past few years to nurturing and educating the young souls in our lives.
We host a regular neighborhood children’s class on Monday afternoons, and also initiated a family children’s class on Wednesday afternoons, and both spaces are always a source of joy and radiance for all!
Here is a photo from a neighborhood festival to celebrate Ayyam-i-Ha!
I pray the end of the year is a time for all to reflect on the growth, blessings, and confirmations we each received, bringing joy and gratitude to every heart, as well as a time to reflect on new goals and aspirations for the upcoming year!
Sending love to everyone to close out 2025 and wishing you all a beautiful start to 2026!
With gratitude and hope,
Colby 🙏🏽✨
P.S. I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!! Has my music had any impact on your life in 2025? Please share a comment below! 👇🏽👇🏽
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