A total of 45 Golden Tickets were handed out in Portland last night, as American Idol made its first-ever stop in this Pacific Northwest city.
But one contestant made an impression above all others who were granted access to Hollywood: Romeo Diahn, a Liberia native who fled that country in the 1990s during its civil war and ended up in a refugee camp in Ghana.
As Steven Tyler notes in the following audition, Diahn literally sang for his life during his time there, and the result – as J. Lo puts it – is a unique “vibe and flavor” unlike anyone else the judges have seen.
It’s an incredible story and we’ll be keeping our eye on Romeo in Hollywood.