By Karen Moul


This week Julio Cesar Castillo became the first contestant in The Voice to sing his audition number in Spanish. He chose “La Bamba,” the Mexican folk song popularized Richie Valens back in the 1950s. Although the song is well known to American ears, it was still a risky move.

“You have to take a risk to stand out,” explained Castillo in an interview the day after the show. “I just went for it. So I'm glad I got the results I did and I'm glad I did it.”

The risk paid off, as Blake Shelton spun his chair almost immediately and was followed later by Cee Lo. Before choosing a coach, Castillo told them of his love for mariachi, a form of Mexican folk music, and Cee Lo invited him to sing a bit.

He fell in love with mariachi around the age of six. “I started listening to music because of my parents and my grandparents,” he explained, “and it’s part of my roots. “And ever since I was young, I had a feeling that that type of music was something I wanted to get into, which I did and I'm still into.”

Is it something he'd like to try on The Voice?

“I’d definitely like to try it on the show. I'm not sure what America’s reaction would be,” mused Castillo, “but like I said before, it’s good to take risks sometimes. And sometimes, the outcome’s even better than you imagined.”

Before the night was over, Castillo and country singer Casey Meussigmann signed up for Team Blake while Adriana Louise got all four judges to turn and joined the one-named Aquile on Team Christina. Mackenzie Bourg chose Cee Lo as his coach and Adam Levine went home empty handed.

Scifi Vision caught up with the contestants the day after their auditions.

By Karen Moul

The Voice’s second night of blind auditions brought another group of impressive performers and winning personalities, none more engaging than Nelson “Nelly’s Echo” Emokpae. A native of Nigeria, Nelly was the highlight of the evening, impressing the judges with his rendition of Bill Withers’ "Ain't No Sunshine" and with his personal story.

Sixteen years ago, when Nelly was just 15, his family fled political persecution in Nigeria but were forced to leave his imprisoned father behind. They settled in Baltimore, where thankfully the father eventually joined them. Although it was in Baltimore that Nelly developed his musical talent, his African roots have been a great influence.

“I’m a product of different cultures and geographies,” he explained, “so it allows me to sound like everything you’ve heard but nothing [you’ve heard]. And also coming from where I came from in Nigeria, it allows me to draw from that and gives me strength to go through the tough times you go through as a musician in this business.”

While fans compare Nelly’s Echo to Seal or Sting, he credits a number of Nigerian influences including the legendary Fela as well as newer artists such as P-Square and 2Face.

By John Keegan

I’ve long said that the only way this season could make sense is if Annie’s experiences and choices were being driven by superiors for a larger purpose. My suspicion was that it had more to do with Arthur and Lena working together to investigate Jai’s death, putting Annie into something of a double-blind deep cover role. This episode makes it clear that it’s not quite that complicated, which helps maintain the integrity of some characters, while undermining others.

By John Keegan and Gregg Wright

This episode sure did take me by surprise. I knew that it would involve boxing, in some way, which left me a bit worried. The whole "fight club" trope is one that has suffered from heavy overuse in episodic television. So the title, "Gloves Off", seemed appropriate enough. But the title has a secondary meaning associated with the overall direction of the storytelling. "White Collar" takes the gloves off, and the results aren't pretty.