American Idol 2024 Premiere Contestants List (Photos)
American Idol’s 22nd season begins on ABC Sunday Feb 18. The premiere episode includes hopefuls whom judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan auditioned amid a hometown theme. The show travelled to each of the judges hometowns to audition contestants, in addition to Los Angeles and Nashville.
The hometowns included Leesburg, Georgia (Luke), Tuskegee, Alabama (Lionel) and Santa Barbara, California (Katy).
American Idol 2024 Contestants Preview (Videos, Photos)
American Idol 2024 Spoilers: Top 24 Season 22 Contestant List
American Idol 2024 Spoilers Showstopper Contestant and Song List
According to spoilers the Platinum Tickets are back, typically given to one outstanding contestant in each audition city. It also appears we will get an appearance from Katy Perry’s older sister, Angela Hudson.
*Contestant research by Blake Busch
American Idol 2024 Premiere Contestants List
Ajii
Ajii is a grunge and punk rock singer from Brooklyn, NY where he fronts the band TMRW NVR PROMISED. The band is a grunge band with influences likely from the 90s grunge era but they also have some hip hop influences. Just on February 10th, Ajii released his first album titled “Double Vision” which has 8 songs on it. His solo sound appears to incorporate soulful and hip hop. Watch Ajii’s American Idol audition HERE.
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“Misery Loves Company” Original:
Alto Moon
Alto Moon is an Atlanta-based R&B singer. His song “Mars” has over 1.9 million streams on Spotify. He mixes electronic sounds with R&B and funk; he also is very much an entertainer. In his Spotify bio, he lists Michael and Janet Jackson as influences as well as Prince and Janelle Monae. He was recently featured on Season 2 of WABE’s (the NPR and PBS affiliate in Atlanta) series Sounds Like ATL to talk about his sound.
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“Dumby” Original
Blake Proehl
Blake is a former Minnesota Vikings practice squad player; he led team worship events for the team’s families too. This past year is his first not in the NFL. He turned to music his first year in the pros after he was sidelined with a really bad injury. In one preview shown, he explains that he wasn’t sure he would be able to run again. He has more than 593K followers on Tik Tok. He recently released a song titled “Chapters” and his song “Waves” appeared on popular Christian band, Maverick City Music’s, album titled The Maverick Way Complete. In his audition preview, he’s shown singing, “In Case You Didn’t Know” by Brett Young and is accompanied by his biggest encourager, his grandma. ABC previewed a bit of Blake’s audition HERE.
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“Love Story” Cover:
Jack Blocker
Jack Blocker is an indie artist from Dallas, Texas who sings anything from folk to country to R&B. He is the frontman of the alternative pop band Rightfield whose song “Gone!” has over 1 million streams on Spotify. He also is a creative, working in graphic design and visual art.
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“El Jefe” Original:
Kennedy Reid
Kennedy is a 23 year-old mortician and funeral director from New Albany, Indiana with a classic country sound. She is an experienced performer who appears at the Grand Ole Country Music Show in West Point, Kentucky. In November, she also got to open for country hitmaker, Gene Watson.
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“I Will Always Love You” Cover
Mackenzie Sol
Mackenzie, a pop singer originally from Northern England, who auditioned for The X Factor UK at the age of 4 in 2005, but he obviously was too young to continue in the competition. Now 23, Mackenzie has a viral following. If you combine his two Tik Tok accounts (one for singing, one for comedic videos), he has over 13 million followers, and on Instagram, he has 1 million followers. His mom is a Tik Toker too, named Nikki Mamma Sol, and has 484K followers. She appears in many of his videos. Mackenzie has released a number of songs including “After Midnight” with EDM artist Slushii which has 1.4 million streams. A video of him singing “Purple Rain” to his grandpa on Tik Tok went viral with 7.8 million views and over 808K likes.
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“Purple Rain” Viral Cover:
X Factor Clip:
McKenna Breinholt
McKenna Breinholt is a 25-year-old singer from Gilbert, Arizona. She has been a featured vocalist with string/choir group Cinematic Pop since she was 16. Their cover of Hallelujah went viral 8 years ago with McKenna singing lead. The video has over 13 million views on YouTube and she has gone on to reprise the cover with the likes of groups like the Phoenix Symphony. Cinematic Pop also appeared on AGT where McKenna was one of the lead singers in their audition before the group dropped out.
She has a raspy voice that was featured as the first released audition of the season where she sang “There Was Jesus” by Zach Williams and Dolly Parton. McKenna shared that she was adopted, and she found out her mom had passed away when she was 21. She got an emotional surprise where she met her birth family in person for the first time. Dolly and Zach have since reacted to her audition on Instagram where they wished her good luck in the competition.
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Cinematic Pop Audition:
Hallelujah 2022:
Meggie Iyer
Meggie is a pop singer from Carmel, Indiana. She studies finance and accounting at Indiana University where she also is a sorority sister. She can be spotted in a promo running out with a golden ticket. It appears Meggie doesn’t have much experience with only a few YouTube and Tik Tok covers available.
Micaela McCall
A children’s music instructor from Santa Barbara, California (the hometown of Katy Perry), Micaela is a singer who is a bit of a throwback with a slightly jazzy and soulful style. She went viral for a clip of her singing “I Dreamed a Dream” which racked up 878K views and 134K likes and led to Idol’s talent scouts reaching out to her. She has years of experience with her first covers being posted nearly 14 years ago. Idol did a small preview of her audition where she will be singing a stripped back version of “Signed Sealed Delivered” by Stevie Wonder.
Odell Bunton Jr.
A 29 year old singer from Arlington, Texas, Odell made the top 6 of Season 6 of BET’s Sunday Best in 2013, at the age of 18. Odell hasn’t released much music since the show, but he did release a song titled “Look At Me Now” under the name Big Two4, and he has teased a few other songs.
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“What You Won’t Do for Love” Cover:
Sariah
Sariah Wertman is a singer who resides in Branson, Missouri. She is originally from Idaho and went to BYU Idaho. Now living in Branson, she is a singing waitress at Mel’s Hard Luck Diner. She also has some acting experience appearing as an ensemble actress in a local production of Hello, Dolly, and she has appeared in other productions at the Springfield Little Theatre. Her style is very throwback, singing old jazz and soul numbers.
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“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” Cover from Diner:
Triston Harper
Triston is a 15 year-old country singer from Mcintosh, Alabama. In a clip promoting the show on Live With Kelly and Mark, Ryan Seacrest teased his name as one to watch. He’s been performing since he was very young, and at the age of 12, he was featured on the news, serenading his class, singing “That’s All Right” by Elvis Presley. American Idol previewed his audition on which he sang “Cover Me Up” by Jason Isbell. The hometown he grew up was home to the Choctaw Indian Tribe. At age 11, he and his mom left his abusive stepfather and ended up homeless. His “paw paw” got them off of the streets.
