Tracy Chapman is the unhurried river. The currents run deep and at their own pace. As an artist, this is the definition of faith.

Chapman has released eight albums in 36 years, and none since 2008. Perhaps she’s said all she needed to say. Sung all that she needed to sing. Or now the words and music are for herself alone. The art is the reward. An artist, true to themselves, creates only to their expectations, not to the public’s. Otherwise, it’s just advertising.

Tracy Chapman performs onstage during the 66th Grammy Awards earlier this month.Credit: Getty Images

Tracy Chapman is also a very private person. Being thrust into the spotlight because of the success of her first album and the singles Fast Car and Talkin’ ’Bout a Revolution never sat well on her shoulders. Conquering the world was not the plan, knowing the inner world, much more so, perhaps the guiding light.

She has still done small tours, appeared at events in recent years, but none so nearly mega-hyped as recently when she appeared at the Grammys, performing Fast Car with country singer Luke Combs, whose version has taken all before it.

The room rose to applaud her, and many sang the words as if they were a lullaby known from childhood, which may well be the case for many. Taylor Swift was born the year after the song’s release.

Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs at the Grammys.Credit: Getty Images

Fast Car’s narrative of escape, and searching for something better, is a common theme in music. Where Chapman’s is melancholic, bittersweet, one part hope, the other resignation, there is Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, a headlong, turbocharged drive down the highway. And many others, such as Simon and Garfunkel’s America.

But in the artistic waters of Chapman, there runs faith. It surfaces explicitly in songs such as Save Us All (“I know Jesus loves me/In my heart I know it’s true/I know Mary’s little baby/Came into the world/Just to save me/But I don’t know about you”), which bounces off the 19th-century Christian hymn Jesus Loves Me.

And it travels other continents, too, such as in the song Heaven’s Here on Earth (“You can look to the stars in search of the answers/Look for God and life on distant planets/Have your faith in the ever after/While each of us holds inside the map to the labyrinth/And heaven’s here on earth”). The positions don’t cancel each other out. They’re just different rooms in the house.