MaKenzie Thomas is a sleeper on The Voice. The singer seems to lurk in the shadows, highly competent but never overwhelming. Take her start, where MaKenzie’s audition got exactly one chair to turn around. And yet, how many do you need? ONE. And since that chair belonged to the one and only Jennifer Hudson, maybe one chair was exactly what MaKenzie needed — a straight path, no hard decisions. (One chair, yes, but also later MaKenzie earned the high compliment of Jennifer Hudson’s hurled shoe, too.)
Yet MaKenzie is still there, thriving and surviving on what is probably the most talented team on The Voice this season — Team Jennifer. How does she do it? Good choices for one. Her “I Believe in You and Me” Top 24 performance was enchanting. And good timing, too: that performance came at just the right time.
[The Voice Voting App 2018, How To Vote Online, Apple Music, Xfinity]
Critics have lamented that MaKenzie’s voice may ultimately lack the size it needs to win. (Despite — or because — she takes on singers like Whitney Houston.) Critic Charlie Mason wrote that “when the song went big, her voice could only approach, not quite reach, the massiveness that would’ve been ideal.” But it isn’t always size that matters. Going big helps, of course, but so many other factors — tone, grace, persona, emotional power — can make up for the inability to go super big. MaKenzie has all these qualities in ample supply. If the music business were limited to divas who can hit every massive note, it’d be a very skinny list of suppliers…
