Jermaine Sellers

Jermaine Sellers is a singer and was a contestant on the FOX show American Idol. He auditioned was featured during the first week of the ninth season, earning praise from all the judges. Randy Jackson said "This, so far ... all of the cities ... best vocal we've seen yet. You've got skills. This kid is hot! This is the real deal right here." His audition song was a soulful rendition of the hit "What if God Was One of Us," originally by Joan Osbourne. During the show, his mother was featured, as Sellers has been taking care of her since he was 17 due to her diagnosis of spina bifida.http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1629689/20100114/story.jhtml

Sellers was eliminated from American Idol on March 4, 2010, as a member of the top 20. Others eliminated on the same evening were Haeley Vaughn, Michelle Delamor, and John Park.

Career

Sellers first began his career at 7 year-old and although he is 26 now, he has never published an album. He has performed on Royal Caribbean cruise ships, and competed in Sunday's Best, a talent show on BET. He earned third place in the competition.http://www.myspace.com/jermainesellers http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1629689/20100114/story.jhtml Sellers signed with a few different labels through the years, but hasn't yet earned mainstream success.

His musical inspirations come from a mixture of artists, including Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Rahsaan Patterson, Faith Evans, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye and more. A few of his singles can be found on his MySpace page, including "I'm Not Worthy," "Can You Imagine," One Of Those Days," "These Three Tears" and more.http://www.myspace.com/jermainesellers

American Idol

March 2: Jermaine Sellers' video features him in his onesie. Before every performance he opens his airways with a steam mask. He did not appreciate Simon's criticism from the week before and feels that it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. While he is a young guy, he is an old spirit, and that's why he picked Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" Randy feels that the performance was better than last week, and a few bright moments, but overall not a great performance. Ellen loves his style but the performance did not work for her. She feels that he pushed too hard this week. Kara feels that his performance is impressive, but too much. She wants him to look at the meaning of the song without all of the vocal calisthenics. Try for one trick that means something instead of all the tricks in every song. Simon finds him frustrating as watering down his songs... he says that Jermaine plays with the songs so much that it takes away from the songs, makes him cabaret and old fashioned. Simon is not sure that Jermaine will be here next week. They like the song choices, just not what he is doing with them.

February 24: For his first live performance as a contestant in the top 24, Jermaine Sellers sang "Get Here," originally by Oleta Adams. Ellen DeGeneres loved his look and the song, and felt that he was singing it more as a performance, rather than singing it for emotion. Randy Jackson thought it was a weird song choice for him, but that Sellers tried to do too much to the song. "Just sing." Kara DioGuardi felt Sellers just wanted to show everyone what he could do, but warned him to make the runs special, not just that he could do it. Simon Cowell said it sounded like Sellers was singing, and that he "totally blew his opportunity."