"The Voice" Star We McDonald Shares Experience with Bullying

Steve Adubato goes one-on-one with performer Wé McDonald to talk about her experience on NBC’s "The Voice" and how her personal experience with bullying has influenced her to go into schools to talk about her experiences.

7/19/2017 #2062

Excerpt:

"Unless I did a song here in my heart, a melody I start, but I will complete, oh! Now I'm done believing you, you don't know what I'm feeling, I'm more than what you made of me. I'm not the voice that you gave to me. God gave you that gift and you're working it everyday. This is Wé McDonald, it just says "performer" here, but she's so much more than that. [laughter] She was a finalist, season eleven, on NBC's The Voice. You Are extraordinary. Thank you. How much do you love singing? As... it's more important to me than breathing sometimes. Yeah. Your speaking voice, your singing voice, not the same? Yeah. I don't know how that happened. [laughter] I always say... my answer is either God or the people that I grew up around, because I grew up around a lot of music. And you know, you grow up listening to Nina Simone, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, you don't hear any high pitched voices. No you do not. I mean, with the exception of Ella. But Ella was a breath of fresh air. So she, you know, it was different for me. I was... Why were you old school like that? Why were you old school in terms of who you listened to? Because you have to understand, you know, who came before you, before you try to master anything else. I feel like that's important. Just like if you're going to dance hip hop, you have to learn how to dance ballet. You started dinging how old? God, I was twelve. That's late in the eyes of some. What were you doing before that? Acting and dancing, which is kind of crazy because now my biggest thing that I'm known for is singing. And I'm like, "I started kind of late!" [laughter] But do people know that you can do a lot of other things? Not as often. If they don't ask, they don't necessarily know until they find out when I perform. Hmm. But I love acting and dancing, just as much as I love singing and writing music. So the term, quote unquote, "performer" which is all your intro said? Yeah. Why do you go with that? Because if you simply say "singer" that's limiting yourself. You know, people automatically put you in a box. If you "perform" you entertain people. If you "perform" you can be an artist, you can be anything that you want to be. So if I say I'm a "performer" I'm here to help entertain you and put on a show. Right before we got on the air, you and I were talking about people who have a hard..."