David and Tamela Mann on 38 Years of Love, Paris at Golden Hour, and Why Friendship Saved Their Marriage
The gospel music power couple discusses building a life of travel, faith, and creative partnership—and why they're bringing the Love and Relationship Tour to San Antonio.
When David and Tamela Mann stood in front of the Eiffel Tower last summer, they cried.
Not because it was their first time in Paris—they'd driven through years before during a European tour. But this time was different. This time, they stood there as two country kids from Fort Worth, Texas, with no college degrees, looking up at one of the world's most iconic landmarks and asking themselves: How did we get here?
"We were having a moment," Tamela says. "I got teary and I was like, 'Lord, we just thank you that we're able to do and learn and have these experiences together.'"
For 33 years, the Manns have traveled the world—not as tourists, but as working artists whose gospel music has taken them across continents. Their Love and Relationship Tour stops in San Antonio on April 11 at the Tobin Center, bringing their signature blend of music, comedy, and unfiltered marriage wisdom to a city they say doesn't always get the big tours. We sat down with them to talk about friendship as the foundation of marriage, what keeps them "geeked" about travel after three decades, and why grace is the one thing that never changes.
We have to start with the story. How did you two meet?
David: Funny story. We met on a dating app—
Tamela: We did not! (laughs) We met through singing. We were friends long before we were lovers. I mean, straight buddy, homeboy, home girl. This is my little sister—my big sister, she's older than me by a month and two years.
David: I just told her, "Hey, we getting married." She didn't say nothing. She didn't respond for two weeks. And I was like, "Did you hear what I said?"
Tamela: I was like, "Yeah, I heard you. I just wanted to see if you repeated it—that meant you were serious." I wanted to be sure that you knew that you meant what you were saying.
David: I told her, "Look, this is what we going to do."
Tamela: See, that's how you got to do it. Just, "This is what we going to do.
You've been in the industry for 33 years and you've had the luxury of traveling the world at someone else's expense. What's that been like?
David: It's the best way. (laughs) But it's really been a blessing. This past summer we went to Paris. We'd been there before when we were doing Germany and London—we kind of drove through it—but we actually went and had an event this time. Standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, we both kind of got really teary. I was like, "Lord, we just thank you."
Tamela: And you got to remember, we're just two country kids from Fort Worth, Texas, with no college education. We were just sitting around looking like, "How did we get here?" Or even imagine being two kids from Fort Worth, Texas, standing in the middle of the White House just chilling.
David: It's like you're looking around like, "Oh, for real?" OMG moment. Living and doing things that child Tamela, child David would have never imagined this would be my life.
Tamela, you wrote in your senior yearbook that you wanted to sing and travel. And now you're doing exactly that.
Tamela: I've been singing since I was eight. Singing has really been a part of my life since like 12 and on. To be able to travel, to put that in my yearbook as a senior that I want to sing and travel, and to actually be able to do what I wrote down—not knowing, honestly, what the scripture says by writing a vision and making it plain. I didn't realize I was even speaking into my own life.
Even my first song, "I Don't Believe the Lord Has Brought Me This Far to Leave Me"—for me to be here, these things to be happening, I'm just like in awe still.
David: And we still get geeked. We've been doing it for over 30 years, but we still get excited.
Tamela: It's not old. It still feels new, still an exciting thing.
Someone asked y'all recently, "Aren't y'all tired? Aren't y'all ready to retire?"
Tamela: It's like, we're loving it. We love it. I mean, think about you get to travel the world and somebody pay you to do that and use your gift to travel. I could never get tired of that. We're sharing our gifts.
David: We're actually sharing our gifts that the Lord has bestowed upon us in so many ways. And then it's like I get to sing and then we get to sing together. With the Love and Relationship Tour, that's what this is—so even more exciting for us to do the love portion. We've been singing about Jesus the whole time and we're still singing about Jesus, but to sing about love and the love of the Lord that we've been spreading, it's like another level of sharing the love.
What was the story behind the title for the tour? The Love and Relationship Tour feels very intentional.
David: We realized that the enemy is wreaking havoc in families right now and relationships. Whether it's your relationship with your parents, your relationship with a friend—the enemy has come in and destroyed relationships.
We went through a situation with our family, with our kids a couple years ago, and once we reconciled, we realized this healing is not just for us. It's for us to go out and share this with the world. Now, how do we do that and make a package to where we can share our reconciling with family and building relationships and showing people how to love intentionally?
Tamela: The enemy don't care who he attacks. He don't care who we take down. As long as he can get an inch in the door to destroy and to tear apart or have soul division—that's his job. He's doing his job. So our job is to show love and compassion, even mercy toward each other, that we can work through these things even though we don't totally agree. Let's just talk about it so we can get on a path of agreeing.
David: We realized that wasn't just for us. We needed to share that with the world.
Tamela: I told him, "I know we want to do concerts and stuff, but I really think we should tune in and really focus on relationships and family." Because the enemy—a lot of our friends divorcing, friends who've been friends for years like, "I'm not friends with them no more." It's like, how do you not be friends with somebody 20, 30 years? How do you fall out of the friendship like that? People just separating, just deciding, "We're good."
So we were like, why don't we do something where we can help people mend those relationships, heal those relationships? The tour is for people whether you married, single, divorced, looking for love, want to find love, in a situationship—you want to sit into a relationship, we can reboot and rebuild.
There's this piece I love that you said: "Why I got to be the bigger person?" And your response was, "Because you are."
David: When much is given, much is required. Sometimes we don't want to admit that we've been given much because we don't want much required of us.
Tamela: Once—because you really don't—that might be a word. I don't want to be the bigger person right now. But to whom much is given, much more is required. We think that in other terms, but that's in the way you give to people as well. That's where you give in relationship.
David: God has given you much in the way of grace, peace, love, joy—the fruits of the spirit. So that is required of you. Much more grace, much more peace, much more joy. Being gentle, being slow to speak, slow to anger.
Tamela: We've been married for 38 years, but you change every 5 to 10 years. You change as a person. So when you love someone and I love him and I'm in it to win this thing, I'm willing to do what I need to do to be better—be a better Tamela, better wife, better mother, better grandmother—so I can be better for him. But it does have to begin with us.
David: The problem is a lot of times we point our fingers, but we don't really look at ourselves. And you know something that never change? Grace. It's going to always be needed. Grace is not going to change. I have this saying: The grace you don't give today will be the grace you will need tomorrow.
What do you think keeps a marriage strong during seasons of real uncertainty? Whether that’s been COVID, what’s happening in the world today... people are looking for a blueprint, and y’all are living it.
David: COVID showed what we were using as buffers. Work was buffers for a lot of us. I get to go out and be away from you for 10, 12 hours. I get to be away from you. So I only get to be home with you—we get that six to eight hours that we're at home a day. Get to lay down, I watch TV, I scroll through social media. As long as I don't have to do that every day, all day with you. But COVID was like 24/7.
Tamela: And you couldn't go nowhere.
David: Can you go to the other room? No, we got to be in here quarantine together. But that for us—it builds up. We got even closer, especially with a lot of people around us dying and really sick and things changed in their lives. Some people don't even breathe the same. Their taste buds is different. Just stuff that we took for granted. We got to spend more time together.
What's the other piece of that—what saved y'all during COVID?
David: Our friendship. Our friendship is actually what saved us. As friends, we was just kicking it, walking outside around the house, just sitting by the fire pit. We found things to do to still make our lives still be compatible.
Our foundation is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—that's what everything else is built on. Our friendship was built on top of that before we tried to be lovers. We discovered we're good friends. I like you as a friend.
Tamela: We were friends like that. Everything was built off of that. It wasn't built on how good we were in bed and the sex was good—it was good, but we ain't had no money.
David: It wasn't built off of that. It was built on our faith and it was built on our friendship. And then everything started to build on that. And then we were like, "We really like each other." And then we fell in love with each other. And then we grew in love with each other. And then now we just like, "Whoa, this thing is good."
When you come to new cities, what kind of food do y'all like to try?
Tamela: Food. (laughs) But I'm still a soul food person. If I can get good soul food or good barbecue—
David: That's because we Texans, you know.
Tamela: I love Mexican food.
David: I'm okay on Mexican food. We gonna give y'all food in general. If it's good food, y'all are down to try it.
So we're excited to be coming to San Antonio. Why San Antonio for y'all?
Tamela: I feel like the area—it needs it. It's needed there too. I like all the markets. If it's an A, B, or C market, I like all the markets where we can reach people who don't normally get a show. That's where you can go where people are really hungry.
David: And they said San Antonio is not one of the sexy spots to come. And so we're like, if we go, they will come.
Y'all have 16 shows across 12 states. How do y'all prepare yourselves mentally, spiritually, and physically to show up for every city and every show?
Tamela: I think the excitement of bringing a message—to me, that's the energy. It's like the energizer going for me that I'm going and there's someone who's never seen me, never heard me, never heard anything come out of my mouth. So when we go, I'm praying, "Lord, let something be said and be done to uplift, inspire, encourage." That's the energy that we go off of. We realize this is the assignment that the Lord has sent us on.
David: Our country is a mess. It's in turmoil. It's a great divide. You see people that ordinarily wouldn't be at odds, at odds. So our job at this point—the assignment that the Lord has given us—is to spread more grace, more peace, more love. Let's see how we can, rather than bringing division, let's see how we can make everybody unified. Because it starts at home then spreads abroad. The love starts at home then spreads abroad. We just want to teach or share more about love and even being patient with one another.
What does the show look like? What can San Antonio expect?
David: We start the show with Tamela and I—we do a song called "Us Against the World." We come out and we do that song together and we sit down and have this intimate conversation about our 38 years. We do several songs. We talk to the people about love and relationship and being in this industry. We share some more of the songs. We'll bring out special guests—we'll be announcing that probably this week.
Tamela: Second half, David comes back in. He's going to be doing comedy on relationships.
David: After I do my comedy, Tamela comes back out, sings your favorites and some from the Live Breathing Fighting album, the recent one that was nominated for Grammy. We're going to sing a lot of those. "Take Me to the King," "Change Me," "Only Imagine," "Now Behold the Lamb."
One community question: What was it like or what has it been like working with Kirk Franklin?
Tamela: People don't realize this, but we've known Kirk over 40 years before he was the Kirk Franklin.
David: We started a group together a long time ago as teenage kids. I met Kirk at 15 years old. I was 18. I met him at 14 when he was 14. We met in a drama class in high school. We've been friends forever.
Tamela: We go way back. We learned from him like rehearsing and getting it in to make sure that you got it. Rehearse like you perform. Perfect practice makes perfect.
David: Can't nobody beat him on that stage. Kirk knows how to move an audience in so many different ways. That's a gift that God has given him. He jump on the piano, he jump around stage—
Tamela: He jump too much for me. I get tired. (laughs)
David: But it was a blessing. We still tight to this day. 40 years, man.
David and Tamela Mann bring the Love and Relationship Tour to the Tobin Center in San Antonio on April 11, 2026. Tickets are available at theloveandrelationshiptour.com. Use code LOVE10 for a discount. VIP packages include meet-and-greet access and photo opportunities. Follow their work on Instagram @davidandtamelamann.
