Sarah M Vasquez

The second season of NBC’s The Voice premieres after the Super Bowl tonight. I became obsessed with this show, and yes, I’ll admit… it was because of Tje Austin. For those that haven’t heard the story by now, we were roommates when he was on The Voice. 

I didn’t think I could write this story for the Accent, and don’t get me wrong, I didn’t write it so I could namedrop or ride his coat tails. When he moved in, he was constantly working to get his music out there, and here he was on television. Of course, I was genuinely happy he had this amazing opportunity, and I wanted to share his story.

But I was his roommate. It’s a huge conflict of interest, and Accent Editor-in-Chief Karissa wanted this story because he is a former ACC student. So the solution was to immediately disclose the conflict and write it from my perspective.

By the way, this is the last print article I wrote for the Accent. I spend the majority of my time with the paper trying to get over my use of personal I and the last article I wrote for the Accent is written in personal I. Oh the irony.

Anyway, I also posted the entire Q&A with Tje on my Accent blog, which you can read here. I also live-tweeted during the episode with Tje’s battle round with Nakia. You can read those at my music blog here.

Editor watches roommate on The Voice
By Sarah Vasquez, Assistant Editor
Originally published on May 2, 2011

The moment Tje Austin’s red skinny jeans and PUMA shoes appeared on the TV screen, I knew it was time for his audition on NBC’s The Voice, the new singing competition that judges solely on contestants’ voices.

He wore a similar look the first time he walked into my house in response to my roommate ad last year.

Click here to read the rest at Accent.