Hear Why 1 Coach Said The Voice Is Named After 4-Chair Artist Sofronio Vasquez
“This is what this show was named after," Coach Michael Bublé said of the Filipino singer's performance. "It was named for you, the voice.”
The Voice Season 26 Coach Michael Bublé thinks 4-Chair Turn Artist Sofronio Vasquez has, well, the voice.
We met 31-year-old Vasquez in the Season 26 premiere of the show on September 23. He explained that he grew up in a poor area in his hometown of Mindanao in the Philippines. He shared a one-room house with his parents and three siblings, and he viewed singing—which he was doing at a young age because “karaoke is like the Olympics” in the Philippines—as his way out of poverty. He first attempted to compete in a Filipino singing competition TV series, but his father died of kidney failure in 2018, forcing him to step in as the breadwinner of the family. Now, though, he’s in America with a chance to sing and, potentially, to support his family back home.
“I really want to be somebody who can help my family back there,” Vasquez said. “If I get a chair turn, it’s going to be big for my family and help me provide a life that they deserve.”
Sofronio Vasquez's Blind Audition on The Voice Season 26
Vasquez got more than a chair turn as he sang “I’m Goin’ Down,” an R&B song first performed in 1976 by the soul group Rose Royce and famously covered in 1994 by Mary J. Blige. He’d barely let out his first note when Snoop Dogg slammed down in his button to turn his chair. Bublé, Reba McEntire, and Gwen Stefani followed in that order in quick succession.
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“I could not hit my button fast enough,” McEntire said when the performance was over. “Your voice is like butter. It's so easy on the ears. But your soulfulness touched my heart. You’ve got the whole package.”
Stefani was in awe, too, calling it “a Grammy performance” and noting only that she hoped to help Vasquez find music inside him beyond just covering other artists’ songs—because, as Bublé chimed in to note, he could already “sing the phonebook.”
Snoop Dogg praised Vasquez’s soul and spirit before bragging about his own accomplishments in an attempt to woo the singer.
“I believe it was in 1992 I was signed to a label called Death Row Records. And 2024, I own Death Row Records,” Snoop said, using his position as evidence that he had what it took to spot and nurture Vasquez’s gift. “I basically scout for talent like yourself.”
It was Bublé, though, who won in the end. After praising the Philippines and expressing his belief that Vasquez was going to make his country proud, Bublé said, “This is what this show was named after. It was named for you, the voice.”
“I’ve been watching the show since season 1, and now from the Philippines, I am here,” he said. “And I will pick Michael.”
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Bublé was excited to have the first member of his team—and the other Coaches seemed to think it was a really, really good one.
“He could’ve just won The Voice with him,” McEntire said.
