Sure, there’s cameras, lights, action, and Simon Cowell, but for Kori Roy – who makes music as Mama Duke – America’s Got Talent is just another stage. As one of the top 44 acts from AGT’s initial competition rounds, Roy will perform live Tuesday, Aug. 26, on NBC.
After more than a decade performing in Austin, the queer songwriter and rapper is pretty comfortable under the bright lights.
“It’s the Live Music Capital of the world. This is what we do. So while there is a nervous part of me, there’s also a part of me that’s like – I’ve been performing forever,” she says. “I get to, now, do what I’ve been practicing in front of my mirror for years.”
In case you missed it, Roy’s live audition for AGT, where she performed her original song “Feels So Good to Be You,” went viral on YouTube and TikTok earlier this summer, prompting reposter Talent Replay to ask, “Did Mama Duke Just Deliver the BEST Vocal Audition?”
Clickbait titles aside, the performance caught the attention of the show’s judges and its national audience, boosting Mama Duke through the other rounds of convoluted competition and onto the live show many of us recognize.
“The hard part is over. Simon Cowell likes me,” Roy says with a laugh. “The world seems to respond to me showing up to be myself and so the rest will work out, you know?”
Now, her future on the show is in America’s hands – as these competition shows love to assert. The acts that will continue onto weekly live performance rounds will be decided by viewer votes. Roy’s already dreaming up what those future shows could look like, bolstered by the national show’s aggrandized resources and contagious creativity.
“Everyone is okay with your wildest imagination. You have people willing to match your ideas. There’s no dream too big it feels like – I haven’t gotten a ‘no,’” she says, amazed.
In the spirit of big dreaming, everyone is already asking Mama Duke what she’d do if she won. The Chronicle, for better or worse, is no exception.
“I’m representing Texas. Austin, but also Texas,” Roy explains. “I get to represent so many different parts of the community and so I just need everybody to know that I’m bringing this W back to Austin and then when I win, it means you win.”
With the actual money garnered by an AGT win – a cool million dollars – Roy imagines establishing a space for musicians to rehearse, rent instruments and equipment, connect, and share resources in the vision of the Tesla-usurped Music Lab.
“I would just like people to know that their vote counts,” Roy intones ahead of her nationally televised performance, hoping for a chance to do it over and over again. “I would love to represent Austin on a national stage.”