Blind auditions for “The Voice” continue to attract incredible talent.
On Monday, March 13, ALI, who was born deaf, completely shocked coaches Kelly Clarkson, Chance the Rapper, Blake Shelton and Niall Horan when she did an amazing cover from the Fugees’ version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song”.
When ALI came on stage and started singing, all the coaches were immediately intrigued. Chance began to shake her head, followed by Clarkson and Horan as they began to shift in their chairs.
Shelton also looked quite surprised when he heard ALI’s riff during the verse. After ALI riffed again in the chorus, Chance pressed his button to see who was singing, with Clarkson following right behind him, signaling ALI that she has two coaches interested in bringing her on their team.
At the end of the song, ALI revealed that she was 24 years old and hard of hearing.
“What?” Clarkson said shocked.
ALI added, “I wear two hearing aids. I was born deaf. I’m so lucky to be able to share this.”
After the audience applauded for ALI, the coaches shared how impressed they were with his performance.
Horan said, “You are amazing. No matter how much adversity you’ve faced in your life, you’re just jumping over obstacles here and it’s amazing to watch, so I wish you luck, ALI.”
Shelton added: “If you lined up all the singers we’ve heard so far and then said, ‘Pick one that’s hard of hearing,’ you’d probably be the last one I would say. That voice was everything. just amazing. The only reason I haven’t pressed my button is because it’s so far out of my way musically. Other than that, wow.
Clarkson noted that she thought ALI’s version of the song was well done, and while it can sometimes be “weird” to hear a song you love performed in a different way, she loved the changes. provided by ALI.
“They were so you,” she said. “I was like, I gotta turn around and see who’s singing this.”
Chance agreed and said, “ALI, I’m still so amazed to hear that you’re hard of hearing,” going on to say that it’s “so awesome” that other artists in the deaf community can turn to ALI for find inspiration.
“Naturally you have an amazing voice and all the choices you made were very emotional. I would love to hear you sing gospel.”
“I grew up singing this,” ALI shared.
“I could tell,” he added.
Although being on Clarkson’s or Chance’s team seemed attractive to ALI, she opted to have Clarkson as her coach.
“Yeah!” Clarkson screamed as she jumped up from her chair to hug ALI.