Brandon Diaz Returns to The Voice 13 Years After No Turn

TVLine and MEAWW report Brandon Diaz earned a chair turn on The Voice Season 30, 13 years after Season 4 judges passed on him.

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Brandon Diaz Returns to The Voice 13 Years After No Turn

By @sharedot · · 6 pages

  • Singing
  • The Voice
  • Reality Competitions
  • Brandon Diaz

TVLine and MEAWW report Brandon Diaz earned a chair turn on The Voice Season 30, 13 years after Season 4 judges passed on him.

What Happened: A Decade-Long Second Chance

Monday's Part 5 of The Voice Season 30 Blind Auditions opened with 29-year-old Brandon Diaz, a full-time musician and Berklee College of Music alumnus who first auditioned on the show in Season 4, when he was a teen and no coach turned a chair, according to TVLine. Per TVLine, his Season 4 attempt was Andy Grammer's "Fine By Me," and he admits he "didn't really know myself as an artist" back then. This time he performed Justin Timberlake's "Drink You Away," and MEAWW reports Queen Latifah was the first coach to turn, followed by Kelly Clarkson, who told him "vocally, you're insane." Diaz also revealed a connection both coaches remembered: his wife, Jackie Foster, who made the Season 14 semifinals.

The Video: 'Drink You Away' Worth the Wait

The audition itself is the story's centerpiece: a blind-audition performance of Justin Timberlake's "Drink You Away" that TVLine graded A-, calling it "smooth and strong as black coffee" and "really spectacular, showing off every vocal trick in Diaz's arsenal." On stage, per MEAWW, Clarkson praised his "soulfulness," and when Adam Levine pointedly declined to turn, he admitted to Diaz, "I made a mistake" — with TVLine noting he likely meant both auditions, thirteen years apart. Diaz chose Team Queen Latifah because, he said, he had "to go with the person that saw it from the get-go," and Queen Latifah told him the "new energy" could carry him "until you take the whole thing."

Why It's Surprising: Levine's Admission

The reversal runs in two directions. According to MEAWW, both Levine and current coach Riley Green sat out Diaz's turn despite the performance's force, and Levine conceded on air that he "made a mistake" — a rare public admission from a coach who was also on the panel that passed on Diaz as a teen in Season 4. MEAWW reports Queen Latifah called the pair's non-turns a "big mistake" and Riley Green admitted it "got very difficult to not turn."

The Night's Wider Stakes

Diaz's comeback anchors what TVLine graded as an unusually strong blind-audition episode, with ten artists landing on teams. According to TVLine, the night's other A+ moments went to Dakota Cohen's rock-shredding take on Black Sabbath's "Changes" (Team Adam), Nina Howland's four-coach-turn performance of Bonnie Raitt's "Love Me Like A Man" (Team Kelly), and a four-chair-turn finale from Kayleigh Mathews singing Vince Gill's "When I Call Your Name," who also chose Queen Latifah over a contentious pitch battle in which Levine was placed in a literal duck blind. MEAWW adds that Mathews, a former Grand Ole Opry tour guide, won everyone over — leaving Queen Latifah with two of the episode's marquee singers as the battles approach.

Sources

  1. tvline.com › The Voice Gives Brandon Diaz A Second Chance In Season 30, Adam Levine Admits: 'I Made A Mistake'
  2. meaww.com › 'The Voice' Season 30 contestant stuns coaches as he gets second chance 13 years after first audition

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