The Voice 24 Blind Audition: R&B singer Kara Tenae ‘Boo’d Up’ for a life changing moment
The Voice season 24 wrapped up it’s third week of auditions on Tuesday (Oct 10) meaning only one more audition episode remains. The teams continued to fill up with several soulful auditions wowing the coaches, including Kara Tenae who hopes to finally catch her big break. (Read our Recap)
Kara is a 33-year-old from Riverside, California who currently lives in Atlanta. The singer was a rideshare driver and notes that, “trying to make it in the music industry, you need jobs where you can make your own schedule.” Uber asked Kara to be a part of a campaign which led to a commercial with singer-songwriter Julia Michaels that aired during the 60th Grammys (see the full commercial here). Kara’s mom notes she has always been singing saying “it was very cute, but we didn’t know where it would lead to.” Kara started a girl group after high school, but they later broke up. It hasn’t been easy for her as an artist. After the commercial she found an agent, but says it was “short-lived.” She hopes her life can change with this audition.
Kara’s song choice is 2018 smash hit, “Boo’d Up” by Ella Mai. Immediately, it is evident Kara is a smooth R&B singer. Her polished, smooth voice is the type that sounds like it would be great in the studio. Her vocals almost have a built in auto-tune quality. It does appear at times, she sings behind the beat which could be a bit distracting. The song isn’t the best pick to show all the technique she is capable of, but she gets Gwen Stefani, Niall Horan, and Reba McEntire to turn in that order. She also shows more range down the stretch with some nice flourishes in her head voice as well as a few belts.
“90s R&B molded me”
Niall says, “It started off really subtle and nice, and then went off on these crazy runs.” He asks Kara about her singing style and she notes that she is an R&B singer adding that “90s R&B molded me.” She blew Reba away, who said that Kara’s singing came from her “inner soul.” Gwen tells Kara “you have so much style, you got swag, you got personality, you got stage presence, you have it all.”
Kara chooses Gwen who she shares the California connection with. Gwen is thrilled to have her on her team and calls Kara a “full-package deal.”
Kara possesses a lot of potential, but another R&B audition that impressed on Tuesday night was Team John Legend’s Caleb Sasser, who’ delivered a soulful take on “Another Sad Love Song” by Toni Braxton which featured jazzy vocals and scatting.
