Why Kevin James Graham’s Blind Audition on The Voice Was a “Total Shockaroo”

“You tripped me right up,” one Coach said to this Artist. Here’s why.

It’s about as pure an example of The Voice’s central premise in action as you’ll see. In Season 26, Episode 4, two Coaches were utterly flummoxed during a Blind Audition because they thought the voice they were hearing would belong to somebody very different — with a different gender — than who was actually up there on stage singing.

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Watch The Voice Mondays and Tuesdays at 8/7c on NBC and next day on Peacock.

The singer, Kevin James Graham, is a 33-year-old from Boston. Not that you would’ve necessarily guessed that from the way he sang Rod Stewart’s “Stay With Me.”

Kevin James Graham’s Blind Audition on The Voice Season 26

Kevin James Graham on The Voice Season 26 Episode 4. Photo: Tyler Golden/NBC

His voice was strong and it was very high, leading to some visible confusion among the Coaches. In the end, Reba McEntire alone pressed her button to turn her chair around, and what she saw surprised her.

“You look like that!?” McEntire exclaimed.

“I’m watching her the whole time and she pressed her button,” Gwen Sefani said of her fellow Coach. “And then she saw it wasn’t the girl she was looking for.”

Michael Bublé was also surprised.

“I kept yelling at Gwen ‘is that a minor?’ Either that is a female or a young dude,” he recalled. “You tripped me right up.”

“I swear I thought you were a female. With your high voice, I thought ‘Well, I do need another girl singer.’ I turn around, and there you stand,”  McEntire said to the newest member of her team. “But man, you totally sang your butt off. That was great.”

Snoop Dogg had the opposite problem.

“This is why I’m mad,” he explained. “I was looking for a male singer, and I didn’t push the button because I thought you was a damn woman! You fooled me, man! And then Reba went and did it.”

“Man, I thought that was a woman, Reba. That’s the only reason why I didn’t push it,” Snoop said as the chairs began to spin back around. McEntire agreed, saying “That was a shockaroo.”