Nigerian Idol: “People are going to get voted out”

Every Sunday, the contestants of Nigerian Idol Season 6 make your evening with incredible live performances … and every Thursday, we show you how they get ready on Nigerian Idol: Countdown to Showtime. Let’s go behind the scenes of what happened on the Nigerian Idol last week.

The theme was My Idol, and the contestants picked and performed songs by their favorite musicians, from Queen Bey to K-pop sensation BST.

The episode reveals how they prepared; sadly, it was with uncertainty – only nine of the eleven will make the next round. It’s the first time the contestants have to deal with eviction, and there’s anxiety in the air. “It’s so sad that two people who rehearsed so hard, got drilled, won’t get to perform,” Emmanuel says as he prepares for his rendition of Emeli Sandé and Labrinth’s See Beneath Your Beautiful.

“They have to stay mentally in the game,” music director Carl Raccah advises. “And it is actually the mental side that’s the hardest of all of this to do; there’s so much pressure. The euphoria of last week’s performance has gone. Now people are going to get voted out.”

And our contestants can attest to the tension. “it is two days to go, and I can feel the pressure,” Daniel says. Vocal coach Bode Afolabi tells him he’s conscious of so many things, and our guess is eviction is one of them.

We learned from this episode of Countdown to Showtime that the mental side of the game is crucial. “It is not going to be the guy or girl with the best voice,” says Raccah. “It is going to be the person who’s the best artiste, the person that can keep it together, the person that can deliver 100 percent all the time.”

Who’s going to handle the pressure better as things get even more tense? We will see in the coming weeks. Nigerian Idol airs every Sunday night and is available to stream on Showmax. Countdown to Showtime premieres every Thursday evening, only on Showmax.