FIREFLY EXPERIENCE/2016 LINEUP ft. meg
Autoplay
Show Thumbnails
Show Captions
Last SlideNext SlideClaymont-based singer Nadjah Nicole performs on The Voice Monday night.(Photo: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)
Maroon 5"s Adam Levine said he was "blown away."
"It was incredible," pop princess Gwen Stefani added.
And country star Blake Shelton flat-out gushed, "You look like a star. You sound like a star."
For Delaware"s Nadjah Nicole Pennington, 23, her introduction to America on Monday night"s season premiere of "The Voice" could not have gone better.
The Claymont-based soul singer, who performs under the professional name Nadjah Nicole, has been a mainstay on the Delaware music scene for several years, performing regularly across the state.
And while she is used to getting praise locally from fans after her powerful performances, it"s not usually from super-famous mega music stars on national television.
"I was just focusing on my legs not buckling," says Nicole, still in awe of her prime time, seven-minute segment on the hit show, which had won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality/Competition Program the night before. "I was ready to crawl into a little ball and boo hoo. I was so thankful."
The fourth "Voice" coach, hip hop/R&B performer and producer Pharrell Williams, was also an immediate Nicole fan, saying, "The show needs more voices like yours."
The day after her dynamic performance was aired, Nicole was busy fielding congratulatory messages from friends and family -- all while keeping her big secret about what happens in the next round of the show, which runs through the winter.
"I"ve been on my computer in bed all day because every time I move I get an e-mail or a text," she says. "Before the show aired, I could get on Instagram and reply to someone in two seconds, but now I"m struggling. It"s been overwhelming. I"m humbled."
It"s been a long road for Nicole, even though she turns 24 next month.
At the age of 12, Nicole began singing in front of audiences, whether it be at churches or weddings. By the time she was a student at Delaware Military Academy, she began singing the U.S. National Anthem at events and performed at everything from talent shows to open mic nights.
Her persistence paid off.
Soon she was at the Neighborhood-to-Neighborhood Street Festival in Philadelphia performing alongside headliners like Macy Gray and Robin Thicke and also nearly winning a singing contest at the Apollo Theater in New York.
In 2011, when she was 19, she was performing at an open mic night at World Cafe Live at the Queen in Wilmington when Gayle Dillman and Jeremy Hebbel, co-founders of the Wilmington-based event production and concert promotion company Gable Music Ventures, spotted her for the first time.
The pair had just starting their company and immediately went up to Nicole after her performance.
"She has star power. We booked her on the spot to play Film Brothers and it sold out," Hebbel says. "We could not be more excited for her."
Since then, they have teamed up for about 20 shows over the past four years at Wilmington venues like the Queen, Film Brothers, Extreme Pizza and others.
Nicole was one of the singers at the first three Gable-run Ladybug Music Festivals in downtown Wilmington, but was unable to perform this year because of the filming schedule for "The Voice." (Her open call audition was in January in Los Angeles and she returned to film the televised audition over the summer.)
And while "The Voice" took Nicole away from a Wilmington stage that night, she"s about to make up for it.
Nicole is headlining at the World Cafe Live at the Queen"s downstairs stage on Friday, Oct. 2 -- a show Gable Music Ventures booked a while ago to make up for the missed Ladybug festival. She"ll be backed by her four-piece band and a pair of back-up singers.
"I"ve been working and focusing on this Queen show, my daughter and bettering myself as an artist so much that I kind of went into hiding," she says. "I"m ready to come out and really show what I can do."
Buy PhotoNadjah Nicole sings the U.S. National Anthem in 2010 at the Delaware Military Academy’s commencement at the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington.(Photo: The News Journal/GINGER WALL, The News Journal/GINGER WALL)
The timing couldn"t be any better. Early TV rating estimates report 12 million watched Monday night"s ninth season debut of "The Voice." That"s a lot of eyeballs seeing Nicole"s shining moment when she sang Janelle Mone"s "Tightrope."
Her TV turn has made her the talk of the state. After seeing Nicole on "The Voice," Wilmington City Councilwoman Hanifa Shabazz realized she has seen Nicole perform at a friend"s wedding and took to Facebook to congratulate her.
"She"s a young, black, beautiful female with great presentation fulfilling her dreams," Shabazz says. "I could not help but support her. And then she sang so well! We all should get behind her."
Nicole was seen on the program tearing up several times, especially early in her segment when the program delved into her personal life, including her unplanned pregnancy a couple of years ago.
"I didn"t tell my parents just yet because I didn"t want them to think that my life is over. I still don"t," she said on the show, breaking down as footage of her with her 2-year-old daughter Journey and parents Wayne and Khim in their New Castle home was shown. "But being here makes me feel like it"s not."
Nicole broke up with Journey"s father last year and works as a banker at WSFS in Wilmington. She lives in Claymont with her "little cupcake."
At the end of her segment, Nicole chose Big Barrel Country Music Festival headliner Shelton over Levine to coach her through the season, which resumes Tuesday night at 8 p.m. on NBC.
Before going to commercial after Nicole sang, Shelton was seen teasing Levine for being passed over by Nicole to be her coach. He joked around by pronouncing her first name closer to the word nausea: "Hey Adam, are you feeling any Nadjah right now? Are you Nadjah-eated?"
For her part, Nicole didn"t get too upset over the wordplay from her new country music star BFF: "Hey, it is what it is. A lot of people do it -- kids did it when I was in Girl Scouts, so I kind of expect it. I"m just glad he pronounced it right when he actually spoke to me."
WATCH
The Voice, which features New Castle singer Nadjah Nicole, continues on NBC Tuesdayat 8 p.m.
IF YOU GO
What: Nadjah Nicole with Nalani & Sarina
When: Oct. 2, 8 p.m.
Where:World Cafe Live at the Queen, 500 N. Market St., Wilmington
Cost: $15
-- Ryan Cormier, The News Journal. Facebook: @ryancormier. Twitter: @ryancormier. Instagram: @ryancormier.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1KtxYDO
Source: http://www.delawareonline.com/story/pulpculture/2015/09/22/nadjah-nicole-voice/72633430/
