Battle For Nigeria Idol Top 3

It’s been a long but interesting journey on the second season of the Nigerian Idol reality show, week after week. The show hopefuls never fail to deliver and hope that viewers’ votes will get them a step closer to the finale and eventually crown them as the next Nigerian Idol.

With four contestants left on the show, the game has stepped up a notch as the contestants performed songs from Top 100 Billboard Charts with the first ever West African Idol winner, Timi Dakolo, who doubled as a guest judge and guest artiste. And the singer opened the show performing his single Great Nation.

Joe Blue was the first contestant to perform. He gave his rendition of Adele’s Set Fire To The Rain and his second song for the evening was the late Amy Winehouse’ Rehab which he danced and sang with backup dancers. Timi Dakolo commented on how wonderful Joe Blue was and thanked him for the great performance. Charlie Boy said the contestant proved to Nigerians why they keep saving him week in week out and his stage craft keeps changing. The diva, Yinka Davies was short of words and simply said “No comment!” As for Jeffery Daniel, he said Joe Blue reversed the scripts and gave strong vocals in his first song while his second song could be described in three words “Showmanship”.

The next contestant Najite hit the stage and also rendered two songs. Her first was Alicia Keys’ No One and her second was Rihanna’s Umbrella. And the judges commented on her performances, Jeffery said Najite did a good job with both songs and time she would grow into performing. Yinka on her part advised her saying “It is time to keep it together so you don’t lose yourself but I like what I see”. Guest judge Dakolo said Alicia would be proud of the rendition but the rap intro didn’t work and she did struggle a little with the song. Lastly, Charley Boy said he’s happy the judges don’t have the power to pick who should win because they would have a hard time choosing but in all, she has improved throughout the competition.

Stephen performed R. Kelly’s When A Woman Loves and Usher’s OMG. As usual, the judges had words to say about the performances; Charley Boy said his rendition of Usher’s song was a good try and pointed out the fact that it is not easy to sing and dance at the same time. Dakolo agreed that Stephen is a good performer but in terms of vocals, his voice didn’t do justice to Usher’s song. He advised him to keep to his style of singing as his music will outlive him. Yinka concurred while Daniel said he took a risk doing the first song but his performance was commendable and as for the second song, he said his voice was too big for the song and it was a wrong choice.

The last contestant Mercy performed Beyonce’s Halo and Amerie’s One Thing. She gave her own rendition of the songs and the judges commended her with Jeffery giving her kudos on the delivery of the two songs. Dakolo simply said he was amazed by her performance.

With wonderful performances from the last four, the big question remains which contestants will make it to Top 3 and which contestant will get the least vote this week and thus end their Nigerian Idol journey?

—Funsho Arogundade