Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Christina Grimmie by Ridhi Reddy


THE GAME OF LIFE – CHRISTINA GRIMMIE

“Man, I was dumb-struck by the depth and range of control in her voice. She truly is the ‘Baby Celine Dion.’”  Christina Grimmie was a famous singer known for her high-pitch singing and her expertise in playing the piano which she showcased on YouTube. Her career grew as she left the judges in a singing competition called THE VOICE and as she left Selena Gomez herself in awe with her singing. She deserved that praise after all. But her life was put to an end by one of her fans, namely Kevin James, who was not ready to respect her choices and religion.

Birth, Childhood and her Small Start

Christina was born and grew up in a normal place but grew her career into a big one. She was born in Malton, New Jersey to Tina and Albert Grimmie. She also had an elder brother called Marcus. She grew up in Malton, New Jersey where she attended Baptist Regional Elementary school and Cherokee High school. Her father was the one who noticed her brilliant talent of singing when she was only six years old. She also came to be a wonderful pianist which was a result of her starting to learn piano at the age of ten. In 2010, Christina was homeschooled for her junior year. Her mother was someone she got inspiration from as a fighter of breast cancer which her mom suffered from three times – on and off.

She started doing YouTube covers from 2009 at the age of 15. It is proved that Christina was a fan of Miley Cyrus’ singing. Her first cover was “Don’t Wanna Be Torn” by Miley Cyrus. She was first recognized as extremely talented in august, 2009 on YouTube. She grew famous on YouTube in 2010 when she tallied 135 million views on her videos. But her moment was on April 28th,2013 when she hit 2 million subscribers and tallied 375 million views on her videos.

The Voice and Being Noticed

Christina was taken to another level when she decided to audition for NBC’s singing competition called The Voice-Season 6. She sang the hit song ‘Wrecking Ball’ by Miley Cyrus for her blind audition, leaving the judges in awe. She auditioned in 2014. “A wonderful soul she was,” they said. She had a wonderful journey on The Voice placing 3rd after competing against competing against Jake Barker and Kristen Merlin. Her singing was admired and was said that it sometimes was better than the original persons singing. She did justice to all the songs she sang. She was announced 3rd on May 19th,2014. She performed the best on Wrecking Ball and Counting Stars in the first few rounds.

Her mind-blowing performance on The Voice resulted in her signing up for several records. Her coach from The Voice, namely Adam Levine, desired for her to sign up for the 222 Records. Lil Wayne  was interested in the idea of signing her up for the Young Money Entertainment. She was on top of the world when she ultimately signed up for the Island Records.

She was noticed by other famous celebrities and singers prevalent at the time, including Selena Gomez. She performed very few concerts before The Voice but her popularity grw when she was found being mentored by Selena herself.

 

She was critiqued casually by Usher, one of the judges from The Voice, who called her a “Baby Celine Dion”. Graham Nash claimed that he was surprised by the depth and range of control in her voice.

But if you look back into her life, she was just a normal person posting covers on YouTube as a hobby. This hobby turned into a career and it grew her in such a way that she claims she was being flowered with praises and requests to perform at concerts. She thanked her mentors and supporters with all her heart for getting her to such a level.

Her End

But her life was put to an end when she was shot dead in a concert in Orlando, Florida. It was such a tragic and sad death for such a beautiful and inspiring person. She had too much talent to leave us so soon. I still wonder why she and only she had to die when a humble and honest person liked her had not made any purposeful mistake in life, not even the smallest mistake.

On June 10th, 2016, she was meeting her fans and signing autographs. She was about to greet a 27-year-old called Kevin James Loibl with open arms as per to hug him when the armed Kevin shot her in the head three times.

There was a 20-year-old behind Kevin called Rivera. She thought the shooting was balloons popping but when she turned backwards from talking to her friends, she saw Christina Grimmie fall dead on the ground. Rivera teared-up and left.

Christina’s brother tried to tackle the killer when he broke free, backed himself up against a wall and shot himself dead. Christina was in a critical condition so was rushed to the Orlando Regional Medical Centre but was sadly pronounced dead at 11.p.m.

There were several tweets on Twitter posted by singers and artists like Selena Gomez, Adam Levine and Usher who claimed that they were heart-broken. They also tweeted that a crazed fanatic like Kevin James deserved worse which even I agree on.

“Why would such a ruthless person want to kill a wonderful soul like Christina Grimmie with no actual reason to kill her?” you must wonder. It was partly due to the fact that Christina came from a Christian faith which Kevin James loathed. Also, a shocking fact is that the killer was in love with Christina Grimmie who he got a plastic surgery on his eye for and became vegan as per to loose weight but when he realized that Christina was in a relationship with her producer, he raged up. This is another reason why he killed her.

Kevin had a police ID which took advantage of. This is said to be a hate crime with Kevin being recognized as a hateful person. This tells us about the conflict between religions that is still prevalent at this time and how people can not respect other people’s choices.

Christina Grimmie was a well known singer and songwriter. She may not be with us anymore but is an inspiration to many as a pursuer of their dreams. Christina may have started small and grew big but it would have been better if her journey wasn’t stopped so abruptly. She was an inch close to reaching the pinnacle in her career.

THE END

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