In April of this year, I’d already mentioned her in my blog about Glennis Grace who had just gone viral online and now, Berget Lewis is causing a commotion of her own.
She’s our very own lady of soul. She’s a household name here in The Netherlands and considered one of the greatest soul singers we have, even when she was just a background singer. As part of the annual Ladies of Soul event, she reached a massive audience, and now through X Factor UK, she hopes to reach a bigger, international audience.
The diva, as she was called by the X Factor judges, could so be living next door to you here. She’s very down to earth offstage and enjoys a pretty simple life, but onstage the star in her comes to life.
Berget grew up on music. With her siblings, she was always singing in church and at home, and quickly discovered her own talent. I seriously think there was no other road for her to take, but the one to a music career. Still, her popularity has only come around within the last decade.
I personally heard her name drop when one of my music friends started working with her. He’s a producer of R&B music and was so heavily impressed by her, that he started promoting her on his social media accounts every time he had the pleasure of working with her as her background singer. That already says a lot. When another musician is willing to promote you, out of respect. That’s when you know you got something spectacular and this is exactly what the UK is now finding out.
When you listen to her performance of Donny Hathaway on the X Factor stage, you can not only see that she is singing with the greatest flexibility and ease, but you can also hear that she has about three different sounds to her voice. This makes her incredibly versatile and able to captivate you as a listener, which she did.
This weekend, she tweeted she has a seat at the X Factor. Another round won. I think it’s a smart move for her to take part in the UK version and try to break into new territory this way. In all honesty, it’s pretty difficult getting there through a different route, even though you could argue whether she’s taking the spot away from someone who wasn’t making a living in music in the first place. But then, it is exactly like she says. The Netherlands is no place for soul music. She wouldn’t get the career she could have elsewhere, especially in the UK which has a very alive soul scene.
