Kelsea Johnson (right) reacts to winning her battle round on The Voice. Also pictured are battle round partner Jordyn Simone and Voice host Carson Daly. (NBC Photo)
After all, coach Alicia Keys gave her a second chance following a battle round match in which she admits she wasn’t at her best.
Kelsea, 21, from Newark, Del., was matched up with Jordyn Simone, 17 of Los Angeles for the battle round. They were asked to sing ““Don’t Let Go (Love)” by En Vogue.
The problem for Kelsea is that’s a big, belty song. And her voice was pretty much shot from a week of rehearsals before she stepped on stage.
So she admits she was more than a little surprised when Alicia declared her the winner of the battle.
“I was incredibly shocked,” Kelsea said during a Wednesday conference call with the media. “I don’t know if you could tell, but in the seconds prior to her naming me the winner, I was so defeated.
“That performance was not something I was proud of. I think it’s kind of obvious because I didn’t have a voice. I’m trying to hit these really big notes. I wound up cracking at one point. I felt so defeated. I thought, ‘This is going to be my demise. This is where I’m going home.’
“To be completely honest, I was already thinking of my thank you speech to Alicia for letting me even be on her team to begin with. So when she said my name, I was just floored.
“I’m glad about the decision, but I really think that Alicia was so understanding in the sense that she saw more than just that performance. In retrospect, she was thinking bigger picture. She liked me enough to keep me on.”
And it wound up working out just fine for both singers.
That’s because Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine both tried to steal Jordyn after Alicia’s decision was announced. Jordyn opted to join Team Adam.
Jordyn also deserves credit for helping her navigate performing a duet, Kelsea said. She calls The Voice “her first step” in music and said she’d never been in a situation where she had to harmonize with another singer like she did in the battle round.
“We practiced those harmonies back to back to back,” Kelsea said. “That might be the reason I lost some of my voice. But we didn’t stop until we got it right.”
As for having something to prove … Kelsea figures that’s her next step.
“From here, I really just want to prove to Alicia that she didn’t make a mistake,” she said. “That’s the biggest thing for my knockout. In the knockouts, I just really want to prove she was right. That she didn’t make a mistake in letting Jordyn go.”
The knockout round begins in two weeks on The Voice. In the meantime, you can head here to learn more about Kelsea and here to learn more about Jordyn.
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