Lachuné Boyd is a music student and voice teacher who decided to take her own advice. As a music teacher, she told the judges on AGT 2023, she found herself conflicted. She was forever telling her students to take the initiative & go for it. Meanwhile she wasn’t taking her own advice. She was singing in a modest way, but not pushing herself enough.
“So today is about coming out here, taking initiative, & being along with my students,” Lachuné said on AGT before singing Coldplay’s Yellow. 31-year-old Lachuné’s first exposure to music was in her local small gospel church in the low country of South Carolina. Despite her studies and her pure tone, you can still hear Southern gospel in her voice:
Lachuné received lavish praise from the judges, and was put through to the live rounds. Simon Cowell perceptively commented after the performance that the main thing Lachuné needs to work out is what lane, what style of music, she is going to focus on. As good as the Coldplay cover is, there is tension between the pop of Yellow and the gospel in her voice. Not that pop and gospel are incompatible. Soul is one example of secularised pop with gospel roots. I would love to hear Lachuné sing Aretha!
Lachuné’s AGT audition was posted on YouTube on 28 June 2023. It already has 24.8M viewers. Her performance has made headlines on forums from Billboard to The Dallas Morning News to Hollywood Life. The next video suggests another “lane” that Lachuné might pursue. It’s a stunningly soulful, stripped-back, piano-accompanied cover of The Kings of Leon’s rock ballad, Use Somebody. Interestingly the Kings of Leon also have deep Southern Baptist roots, albeit in the “white” variant of the religion.
Lachuné’s Boyd’s AGT audition is currently the lead video on the home page of the AGT YouTube channel. Billboard reports that following Lachuné’s cover of Yellow on AGT, Coldplay’s original version re-entered the charts and peaked at No. 48 on the Hot 100.
On YouTube Imili Abdelli commented on the AGT video: “I am literally crying. She melted my heart with her angelic vocals.” Skinnydynamite69 opinioned: “She didn’t get the gold buzzer cause she’s above gold and doesn’t need encouragement. What a voice. My money is on her to win the lot provided she picks the right song. Also, what a lovely, bubbly personality.”
Lachuné is from a tiny town outside of Andrews, near the evocatively named Big Dam Swamp, South Carolina. The Post and Courier’s Charleston Scene describes her family as a family of performers. “Whether at dinner, in church or working on the tobacco farm, someone in the family was always singing,” The Post and Courier reports. Lachuné’s father sang in a church group with his sisters & Lachuné and her sister sang in the church youth choir.
For the past four years Lachuné has been based in Fort Worth Texas, where she is completing a master’s degree in music at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. To support herself, the self-described introvert gives singing lessons. In 2022 Lachuné released a low-key 9-track first album, Sing Hallelujah! Judging by the response to her AGT audition, Lachuné Boyd is an artist to watch out for. If you would like to see more from Lachuné Boyd, you can subscribe to her YouTube channel.