Kalifa Wilson (who goes by the name Kai The singer) auditioned for American Idol and made quite the impression on the judges.
She goes by Kai because she says that Wiz Kalifa “took” the name and made it a little hard for her to use it herself!
During her audition, Kai was asked to tell the judges about herself, and Kai got a little choked up. She had a tough life growing up.
However, even though Kai said things were rough, she tries to not view her past growing up in South Carolina as having a hard life. Throughout her childhood, she was in and out of shelters and hotels.
At one point, she and her family were homeless. They did have a car at the time and Kai was very thankful for her family to at least have the car to live in.
When she was growing up, she didn’t think that her family was struggling. But she started to realize things weren’t great when she was at school and she noticed her family’s life was much different than her classmates. She said it seemed just like life.
Even now that she is 19, things are still tough financially. There are eight people in her house and only two people in the house have beds. They have picnic chairs in their dining room and some family members share an air mattress at night.
Despite that, Kai tries not to let it keep her down. Though she gets upset seeing her family going through a struggle, she is trying to be somebody for her family in a less conventional way than going to college. She decided to be a singer.
Lionel Richie told her that the beauty of things is that she made it to American Idol and the smile on her face cancels out what she has been through thus far.
To start out her audition, Kai decided to sing “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran while paying the guitar. Part of the way through the song, Luke told her to stop playing the guitar and instead asked her to start clapping.
The judges could tell that she really was so nervous while singing, they wanted to give her another shot at the audition. Rather than leaving it at that, they asked her to take a deep breath and give them another song.
For her next song, Kai decided to use the piano and she sang “My Girl” by The Temptations. Thank goodness the judges gave her that second chance because this was a much more emotional performance.
In fact, it was so emotional, Katy Perry actually started to cry at the end of the song! Kai changed the lyrics to fit with her own feelings and it was something that Katy really admired.
Were you also crying with Katy Perry? We totally couldn’t hold back some tears over here either. Music really can make us all a little emotional!
American Idol airs on ABC on Sundays and Mondays this season. You can catch the next episode of American Idol on Sunday, April 7, 2019.
You can watch Kai the Singer’s audition in the video below:
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