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Who is Victor Solomon? 'The Voice' contestant stuns in duet with John Legend and promises to 'shake things up'

This was the first time when John Legend turned his big red chair around after someone performed one of his original songs. Blake and Nick were equally mesmerized by Solomon’s epic performance

Victor Solomon was one of the highlights on the premiere episode of ‘The Voice’ Season 20 as he left the coaches asking for more. The 22-year-old crooner performed on John Legend and Common’s Academy Award-winning song ‘Glory’ during the blind auditions on the show and got thumbs up from three of the judges.

The very first episode of the singing reality show premiered with the judges namely Blake Shelton, John Legend and Kelly Clarkson. Nick Jonas made his deserving comeback on the show replacing Gwen Stefani as the judge on the big red chair. Carson Daly, like always, took care of the hosting responsibilities.

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Who is Victor Solomon?

Victor Solomon, who attends North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University, a public HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities), made three chairs turn except Kelly Clarkson as she seemed less impressed with the contestant. Interestingly, this was the very first time when John Legend turned his big red chair around after someone performed to one of his original songs.

Blake and Nick were equally mesmerized by Solomon’s epic performance on ‘Glory’. It was also later revealed that the singer was also a big fan of Legend for a long time.

After the audition ended, Legend told Solomon, “I grew up in a church, I grew up singing gospel music, and when we wrote that song, it was meant to evoke the hymns that we grew up listening to and the songs that carried a lot of our ancestors through a lot of tough times when they were marching for voting rights and all these other things.”   

Legend added, “I have literally zero times turned for someone singing my song. It’s just I scrutinize it more heavily than I normally would. But, I was like, ‘I don’t need to do that’. I was like, ‘He’s doing some things I haven’t done that are better than what I would do with this song'.”

Solomon and Legend later broke into a duet on the latter’s song called ‘Ordinary People’. His audition certainly led to mayhem on the set as all the coaches minus Kelly tried convincing him but in the end, he went for John Legend and said, “I am gonna shake things up.”

‘He sang John’s own song better than him’

Victor Solomon not only proved to be the favourite of the judges but also got a thrilling response from the Internet. A lot of social media users praised his singing skills on Twitter after his stellar performance on the song ‘Glory.’ One user stated, “You talk about talent!  I can’t wait to see how this turns out! #ShakeThingsUp.”

A user added, “When Victor sang 'Glory' By The coach Himself @johnlegend  During His first blind audition of #TheVoice Tonight Wow I thought He did such Incredible & Unbelievable Job, It was Obvious He was taking me to church & Sang I had to Put Him on My team app Because, He sang So much Soul.” 

The next one shared, “Should’ve been a 4 chair turn. He sung John’s own song better than him. Kelly not turning was foul af, tbh.” Another posted, “Glory!!!!! Wow!! Soul 2 the Core!!! Wow!!! Synergistic Vibrational Love!!”One said, “This cat Victor Solomon just sang Glory on the Voice! He killed it! Moving!”

Another user concluded, “Come on, Victor Solomon. Sang man! Reminds me of @TheeRealBurnell  Such soulful, rich tones.  He has grit, finesse, power, and history in that voice. This took me to church. very touching. #TheVoice #premiere.”