American Idol season 24 resumes Monday night and Mississippi native Daniel Stallworth will take the stage as one of seven contestants competing for a place in the show's Top 5.
The episode, billed as “Celebrating Taylor Swift on American Idol,” begins at 7 p.m. CT on ABC and runs two hours; viewers can cast up to 50 votes for the contestant of their choice during the broadcast, and the show will announce its Top 5 at the end of the episode.
Each of the remaining seven contestants will sing a Taylor Swift hit of their choice, and voting opens at 7 p.m. CT and closes during the episode’s final commercial break; votes can be submitted online, by text message, on Facebook, on Instagram and on TikTok.
Stallworth, a 28-year-old elementary school teacher from Moss Point who now teaches outside Houston, Texas, is competing for one of those five spots. He graduated from Alcorn State University, where he was chair of the gospel choir, and he says he leans gospel even as he prepares for a pop-star tribute night.
His musical story is rooted at home: family members first noticed his talent when he was a toddler “beats on pots and pans,” his mother signed him up for lessons, and he began performing at church. He learned piano around age 15 and, before appearing on American Idol, had already built tens of thousands of followers by posting videos of himself singing.
Stallworth’s climb to the Top 7 came through a string of varied covers: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb,” Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long,” Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” Lenny Kravitz’s “It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over,” Blessing Offor’s “Brighter Days,” and Brad Kane and Lea Salonga’s “A Whole New World.” Those performances left him in the seven who will now tackle Swift’s catalog live on Monday.
Mississippi performers have a recent history of success on the show: Stallworth is the fourth Magnolia State native in the past four seasons to make it this far. Monroe County’s Colin Stough and Zachariah Smith both made the Top 5 in season 21. Meridian’s Jamal Roberts won season 23, and Roberts was an elementary teacher during his run; he was the first Mississippi winner since Amory’s Trent Harmon won season 15, with McComb’s La'Porsha Renae finishing as runner-up that same season.
The tension for Stallworth is simple and concrete: he leans gospel, and Monday’s challenge is a night of Taylor Swift songs. That contrast is exactly the kind of friction that decides these rounds — a singer known for church and gospel work performing material outside that tradition, while millions of votes and the show’s pacing decide who advances.
For viewers who want to influence the outcome, the mechanics are straightforward: voting begins when the program starts at 7 p.m. CT, remains open through the two-hour showing, and ends during the final commercial break; the contestant pool that stood at 127 after auditions will shrink to five by the episode’s close.
By the time the credits roll Monday night, the show will have closed American Idol 2026 voting for this round, tallied the up-to-50 votes per viewer submitted through the permitted platforms, and named the Top 5 — and Daniel Stallworth, the Moss Point teacher with a gospel background and a social media following in the tens of thousands, will either move on or head home.
