Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Blind audition: Ali Caldwell, 28, of New York, N.Y., auditioned with Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman.” She demonstrated great control, range and power over the course of a 90-second performance that prompted chair turns from all four coaches, with Adam Levine leading the way. Miley talked about challenging Ali with songs no one would expect her to sing. Alicia called Ali “special.” In a bit of a surprise decision, Ali joined Team Miley, saying her mom always told her to “dare to be different.”

Her background: Her mom is a music and dance teacher, and Ali says that’s where she picked up her love of performing. “If you would listen, she would perform,” Ali’s mom says. When she was a senior in high school, she got the opportunity to perform in a girl group called Xhale. They opened for Patti Labelle and came close to getting a record deal. Ali wound up landing in New York where she performed, eventually winding up participating in five tours in Russia. “I had my face on billboards,” she says. “I actually cried when I saw that.” Now she’s trying to make a name for herself in the U.S.

What the show didn’t show:
* According to her Facebook bio, Ali fell in love with music through the recordings of Brandy, Tamia, Anita Baker, Beyonce, and Faith Evans. But she also developed a diverse sound by listen to artists like Pink, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette.
* Xhale also opened for BoyzIIMen and met with several records labels, but failed to land a deal, according to Ali’s bio on The Voice website. The group broke up in 2010.
* In 2014, Ali toured Russia for the first time with a successful jazz musician named Oleg. Since then, she’s been to Russia five times to perform, according to that bio.
* Her Facebook bio says she performs regularly at New York venues, including Drom, Milk River and the Village Underground.
* Last year, she released a five-track EP called “Heart of Ballads.”
* In an Arise Entertainment interview, Ali says one of the major moments of her career came when Tyler Perry attended one of her shows and wrote about how amazing she was on Facebook. “I woke up the next morning and one of my friends called me early in the morning and said, ‘Have you seen Facebook?’ I said no, I just woke up. She said, ‘Go on Facebook!'”
* Her Facebook bio says she has also spearheaded a movement called NoMajorZone, a motivational outlet designed to show independent artists can achieve success without major label backing.
* As for her decision to join Team Miley, this is how Ali described it in a conference call with the media: “I can honestly say I picked Miley because for one, it was a gut feeling first and I always go with my first instinct and my gut is usually most of the time right. So I just went with her because I wanted to do something different. I’ve been inspired by so many different kinds of genres. I just felt like she would be the perfect person to kind of give me new knowledge about music that I probably never even heard of before or wouldn’t even think to do as an R&B soul singer.”

Keeping up with Ali:
Twitter: @iamAliCaldwell
Website
Facebook
YouTube