All set as The Voice Nigeria, begins tomorrow

It is hot air as one of Nigeria’s ultimate contest, The Voice Nigeria, which absolute key factor is talent with focus on producing the next big star in Nigeria, will begin to premiere tomorrow on Africa Magic channels, Showcase (Ch 151) and Urban (Ch 153) respectively at 7pm (19:00 CAT).

The music reality show, now in its season two, gives no room for fly by nights or wannabe, but only the very best of star with the best voice combined with the best mentality.

Agharese Emokpae popularly known as A’rese won the first season, while Chike from Team Patoranking was runner-up. A’rese with her Hallelujah won a recording contract with Universal Music Group, an SUV car worth N7 million and a trip to Abu Dhabi in UAE.

The show start with a unique selection method — the Blind Auditions. As the name suggests, the candidates are only be heard and not seen by the judges cum prospective coaches made up of celebrated Nigerian music stars — Timi Dakolo, Waje, Patoranking, and Yemi Alade, all coaches for this season of the reality contest.

During this stage the coaches have their chairs faced away from the stage as the contestants sing, and they vote for the worthy performing talent. The coaches have the duration of the contestant’s performance (90 seconds) to decide whether they want the contestant on their team and turn. They press the ‘I Want You’ button.

It is need be noted the coaches are allowed to give their uncensored opinion about the candidate’s looks, style and performance, but once they have pressed that button, there’s no way back.

If one coach turns, the contestant defaults to that coach but if more than one coach turns, the contestant has to choose who he/she wants to work with. In the end of the blind auditions, each coach will have twelve talents on his or her teams.

The next stage is the battle rounds. In this stage, the coaches, pair their talents in twos and give each pair a song to perform. After the performance the coach chooses one to advance, while the other goes home, or is stolen by another coach. Each coach has two steals. The coaches advance with eight talents each at the end of the battle rounds.

After the battle rounds comes the ‘Live Shows’. During this stage, each talents perform a song given by the coach, and the coach saves one out of every four talents, while the rest are left to public votes.

The public votes save one talent out of each team every week, while the rest are evicted. The talents are cut from 32 to 16 to 12 and then to 8, who qualify for the finals. From the top eight, the winner and runner up are decided by the public votes.

The inaugural season, which began April 10, 2016, had Waje, Timi Dakolo, Patoranking and 2Face Idibia as judges/coaches, while IK Osakioduwa and Stephanie Coker co-hosted.