Jermaine Paul is The Voice

By: Lynn Barker

We’re getting the reaction of the Season 2 winner on the NBC show!

R&B artist Jermaine Paul, a former back-up singer for Alicia Keys, won the latest season of  “The Voice” on NBC beating out songbird Juliet Simms. Team Shelton turned out to be a winner despite many fans wondering why Jermaine chose Blake Shelton as his mentor when Shelton is big in Country music. Jermaine says he felt an affinity with the dude and liked his very upbeat ‘tude. He also praised his family for their undying support.

Q: Did having your family there make it easier for you?

• Jermaine: Well, definitely when my mom walks in the front lounge that was lot for me to take on. I guess, like every mom in the world, mine has a way of just making you feel like a 12-year old kid who fell in the park and needs a Band-Aid.

Q: Awwww. How was your confidence level over the course of the whole season? Did you have confidence that you would win?

• Jermaine:  When you first do a competition like this, you don't go in with this crazy, over-zealous confidence at all. You try to go in with a humble spirit and you go in, hoping to just get through that first whatever it is - in this case it was the blind audition. I was thinking about how many chairs would turn around or if the chair would turn around at all! You're always just thinking about the task at hand. Then, Juliette had some really great breakthrough performances throughout the whole competition and that definitely made us all kind of nervous.

Q: What has winning meant to you and your family?

• Jermaine: I guess if I could sum it up in words it would be full circle. It definitely has brought things full circle I’ve been working for 17 years to seal a record deal and get a chance to have an album. That’s been my focus since I was about 16 years old when I signed my first deal. It takes twists and turns, mountains and valleys. It just feels like everything came full circle. It means the world to me. Everything I’ve done to that point prepared me.

Q: Any details on when the album will come out or who you'll be collaborating with?

• Jermaine: Well we're looking to work with of course Alicia Keys. I put in a request to work with Ryan Tedder with Republic. I'm a big fan of his work. And there are definitely some other folks that we're going to bring in. But I have a really, really great team over at Universal so I'm really excited about the album and the first single.

Q: After being a backup singer how was it to be vulnerable and alone on stage?

• Jermaine: Well, I've been performing trying to do my own thing now for about a year and a half now, still doing background work but also doing gigs and things like that. Also, before I did the background singing I was trying to be an artist myself. For a while I was the front guy in a group but definitely, coming out from the back is a change. Being in the background has helped me and it helped me harness my energy and really hold on to my own truth as an artist.

Q: After being on the show, have you zeroed in on the message you want to impart as a singer? 

• Jermaine: I think, Blake Shelton really helped me find out exactly what I want to say. And this show is so great for a guy like me because I have to deal with so many different opinions and thoughts on what I should do and how I should sound and what I should wear but this show definitely gave me the platform to do exactly what I want and say exactly what I want to say to the world and to my kids and my wife. It’s real now.

Q: Would you be interested in doing some more music with Blake?

• Jermaine: Of course. There's definitely a song that I have in mind. It's a ballad though. We had fun with “Soul Man” on the show but there's a ballad that I would like to do, two songs that I think would be cool and I would definitely let him pick which one he thinks would be more fitting.

Q: You were really emotional on stage a lot. Was that a plan or just you?

• Jermaine: No, no, we never really discussed any plan. We discussed the right songs that would possibly evoke emotion.  It's so important to do songs that I could relate to and I could emotionally connect to. There were times during the sound check that I couldn't even get through the songs because they just brought up so much real true honest feeling. Actually I don't like getting emotional at all but for me all the time, the best way for me to sing a song is to be able to relate to it and feel it.

Q: We were feelin’ it! Congratulations.

• Jermaine: Thanks!