Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Aaliyah Rose, 14, of Provo, Utah, auditioned with “Rise Up” by Andra Day. A wonderful opening prompted a chair turn from Gwen Stefani. Surprisingly, she was the only coach to turn around. Gwen called the first half of the performance “crazy good.”

Her background: She says she comes from a big blended family that includes five children. Her family lives with her grandparents because of financial struggles. While growing up, Aaliyah says she was always singing around the house with a fake microphone she got one Christmas. Next came singing competitions and country fairs. When she was 10, her parents started a YouTube channel for her. One of her videos, a cover of Meghan Trainor’s “Lips are Movin’,” attracted 5 million views and got the attention of Meghan. In fact, the star singer sent Aaliyah a video message of encouragement for her audition. As for her audition song, she said it was her way to tell her family things will get better and “there’s always hope.”

What the show didn’t show:

*She always loved to sing and, according to her Facebook bio, her mother recognized her talent when Aaliyah was about 5 and had a habit of listening to singers on the radio, then singing their songs while showering.

* She was chosen to perform “Let It Go” at the Radio Disney Music Awards in 2014 and got to perform in front of 10,00 people at the Nokia Theatre.

* She was just 11 years old and singing the national anthem at a BYU baseball game when Radio Disney officials showed up to surprise her with the news that she’d been selected to perform at the music awards show.

* As for that YouTube page, Aaliyah now has more than 95,000 subscribers and more than 11.5 million views.

* Aaliyah Rose released her first EP – “Follow Your Heart” – in 2014. It includes five tracks, including a “Let It Go” mashup.

* She released an 11-track “Christmas Wishes” album in December that includes covers of such holiday classics as “Winter Wonderland,” “Silent Night” and “This Christmas.”

* Aaliyah has also released about a dozen singles to iTunes, mostly covers of pop hits, including Sia’s “Elastic Heart” and Meghan Trainor’s “Dear Future Husband,” both released in 2015.

* Prior to The Voice, Aaliyah had been performing in Gladys Knight’s Saint’s Unified Choir for about six months. The gospel choir travels the nation performing.

* During a conference call with the media, Aaliyah told Voice Views she’d been dreaming of auditioning for The Voice since age 11 — that it was “the one show that I wanted to do.” But she was always too young until the show lowered its age limit to 13 for Season 12. “But as soon as they lowered the age and they contacted me, I was so, so excited.”

* She added that she believes performing alongside far more experienced performers will be “really good for me” because of everything she can learn from working with and around them.

* Aaliyah said she was touched by the message from Meghan Trainor and that the star’s words helped her while she was performing on The Voice stage. “She inspires me so much as a artist. She teaches girls to love themselves and don’t really care about what other people think about you. That’s something that I want to do — tell other girls, younger girls that they can be who they want to be and love themselves.”

Keeping up with Aaliyah:

Twitter: @TheAaliyahRose
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

“Love Me Now” cover

“Rise” cover