She was placed fourth on the sixth season of American Idol.
Jones was born to a teacher at the Flint Foundation Academy and was raised by her grandmother, Ruth Jefferson Morris.
An only child, Jones is a Baptist who began singing at the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church at age five. She was formally trained in classical music although her favorite genre is gospel music. Jones always dreamed of becoming a singer. She was home schooled in Flint, then attended Flint Central High School (now Flint Central Commencement Academy), where, in one of her earliest performances, she appeared in a play called, Lead Poisoning. The play revolved around a middle-class African-American family and a teenager's struggle after her stepfather entered the family. Jones co-starred with classmates Ditanyon Demps and George Price. While in high school, Jones performed with one of the groups in the choral department, the Madrigal Singers. Jones graduated in 1998 and attended the University of Michigan-Flint, majoring in music. During college, she performed in the play Godspell. Jones stated in her Idol interview that her home was Flint, Michigan for her first 20 years, that she then moved to Fort Meade, Maryland but that she is now a Flint, Michigan resident again.
After she left college, Jones moved to Houston, Texas, where she lived for six years. One of her earliest jobs in Houston was that of a secretary at Abundant Life Cathedral, a church with 7,000 parishioners. Prior to working at the church, Jones sang in the 70-member choir. The choir has produced well-known gospel singer Yolanda Adams, among others. In 2006, Jones moved to Fort Meade, Maryland, in order to be closer to her cousins and other relatives. At that time, Jones landed a job as a bank teller at Provident Bank in Millersville, Maryland which she gave up when she moved to Hollywood to compete in American Idol.
Jones was the 1997 winner of Flint's now defunct supershow, and while living in Houston, she took second place in the 2005 Gimme the Mic competition.
Jones did not audition singing "Think" by Aretha Franklin. The judges were impressed with her powerful vocal and performance, and Simon noted that he "loved this girl". LaKisha was shown emotionally embracing her daughter after being sent into the next round. In her farewell montage on the episode of her elimination it was shown that she also sang "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" during her audition. She also performed Stevie Wonder's "Until You Come Back To Me" during one of the Hollywood audition rounds.
Jones received positive reviews for all three of her performances. During her first performance of the smash Dreamgirls hit, Simon went as far to tell her, "I'm very tempted to tell 23 other people to book their plane tickets home."
On March 8, 2007, Jones became a finalist of the sixth season of American Idol, but was voted off,
LaKisha plans to get a quick start on her career. She is already scheduled to tour with the Top 10 Idols on the Idols tour. Jones says that she will also be focusing on two goals: a record contract and a new home.