Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Kyana Fanene of American Idol Season 23

Season 23 kicked off Sunday, March 9 with Carrie Underwood joining Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan as part of the judging panel.

A final audition episode airs Sunday. Then Idol will begin Hollywood Week, with the first episode airing Monday night on ABC.

Here’s more about Kyana.

* Her Spotify bio describes her as a Brooklyn-based rising pop / R&B, Hawaiian and Samoan artist. She was born and raised in the Bay Area of California.

* She enters the competition with lots of performing experience and already released music.

* Kyana currently has three singles on streaming sites — “Bapada,” “Other Hands” and “Seven Minutes” — all released since 2023.

* In fact, “Seven Minutes,” a collaboration with Jackie Evans, just came out in November. “They say after you die your brain remains active for seven minutes, replaying life’s greatest memories. We loved that concept, so we wrote a song.” Check it out below.

* Kyana’s also no stranger to singing competitions. She was a high school student at the Oakland School for the Arts when her a cappella group, Vocal Rush, auditioned for NBC’s “The Sing Off.”

* The group wound up making it all the way to the finals, singing Katy Perry’s “Roar” on that show in December 2013 and finishing third.

* Kyana wound up receiving a presidential scholarship to Berklee, graduating with a degree in music therapy.

* And her involvement with PitchSlapped, the a cappella group there, led to roles in a pair of movies — “Daddy’s home 2” and the Oscar-nominated “CODA.”

* In an 2022 interview with MassLive.com, Kyana said the lesson from that experience is “audition for everything and network as much as you can …. Hold your own. Be authentic. And, most of the time, people will jsut love the fact that you are real.”

* Another musical highlight for Kyana was singing background on the Jon Batists, Jon Bellion collaboration “Worship.” The song wound up being nominated for a Grammy.

* Writes Kyana in a post that includes behind the scenes footage from the recording session: “I look at these vids and still have to pinch myself that I got to work with these insane musicians with my friends. That’s the dream right here, y’all.

Kyana on social media:
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