Ohio woman hopes BOOM! will help her win national music competition
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- For one central Ohio woman, Red, White & BOOM! is the last chance to be a finalist in a nationwide competition to find America's next music star.
Jamie Lavigne, or "J Jewel", as she's known on stage, is trying to hold onto first place in America's Next Top Hitmaker. Lavigne is set up near Food Truck Alley at Red, White & BOOM! selling homemade jewelry and face paint for kids. She said she's excited to sell but has a different goal in mind: she wants BOOM! attendees to vote for her.
America's Next Top Hitmaker is a public vote-based competition by SoundCloud, Rolling Stone and Global Citizen that gives a rising artist a boost while raising money to end poverty. Lavigne is first in her group and, if she can maintain that lead until 10 p.m. Thursday, she will be just three steps away from winning $50,000, a feature in Rolling Stone and a performance at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City.
Lavigne grew up in Ohio with a love of performance and attendees passing through will be able to see her at BOOM! Her booth is equipped with codes to scan to cast votes in her favor, and she will perform live to encourage people to support. See previous coverage of Red, White & BOOM! in the video player above.
"I'm really not trying to sell stuff, I just want people to vote and donate to Global Citizen," Lavigne said.
People can vote for free through Facebook once every 24 hours, or make donations to cast additional votes. Lavigne said the donations go to Global Citizen to support their mission to end extreme poverty. Global Citizen often uses events and collaborations to support their cause, such as the annual festival.
If Lavigne wins, she will perform for 60,000 festival attendees in Central Park this fall, all of whom took action to end extreme poverty to earn their tickets. Past performers include Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone and Stevie Wonder.
Lavigne said she first entered the competition with low expectations. When she woke up one day and realized she was in fifth place, she started getting excited and trying to collect sponsors. She said she did not expect to get this far, especially because she's been in other competitions she felt favored more provocative acts.
"I have over 100 songs and they're all clean, Christian songs," Lavigne said. "It started off, I didn't take it too seriously because I didn't think I was going to go anywhere with it."
The competition is expansive, so it divided the thousands of competitors into various groups once they applied. So far, Lavigne has had to compete through five rounds within her assigned group, which has been whittled down to the top five performers. If Lavigne is in first place when voting closes, she'll move on to the quarterfinals and compete against the other groups' first place winners.
She asked anyone who is visiting BOOM! to stop by and cast their free vote for her, or make a donation for even more support. She told America's Next Top Hitmaker that if she wins, she will support her son, who has autism, with his AAU basketball dream, get her drivers license and buy a "reliable used Toyota SUV." She said appearing on the festival stage and the pages of Rolling Stone would be a dream come true, especially as someone with historically less representation in music.
"You know, a Black woman in Rolling Stone? That's unheard of," she said. "The more votes the better."
Voting closes at 10 p.m., right when the fireworks will begin. Lavigne plans to sing the Star Spangled Banner just before the drone show starts.