Technically winning American Idol while you are a high school student would still be considered “peaking in high school” right? But just not in the traditional sense of the phrase?
Regardless, Iam Tongi is having a hell of a year, winning American Idol back in May at the age of 18, and now accomplishing another thing that teenagers usually do: graduating high school. I’m sure his last year at Decatur High School in Federal Way, Washington has been a whirlwind, but Tongi wasn’t too “big time” to attend the graduation ceremony.
In fact, Tongi decided to celebrate the momentous occasion by performing live in front of his classmates. As the full auditorium went crazy, the American Idol winner managed to fit the introduction for the song he would be singing in between yells and screams from the crowd.
Tongi stated:
“I just wanted to thank all the staff and all the teachers. Thank you guys for everything and supporting throughout this journey.
And I wanted to dedicate this song to all my classmates, because when I won ‘American Idol,’ I sang this song as my last song and I want to sing this song for you guys, cause we’re all winners today.
It’s called ‘Don’t Let Go.'”
The cover of the song “Don’t Let Go” by Spawnbreezie ended up bringing the house down in front of the graduation crowd, just as it did when he performed it on American Idol. You would think that Tongi would be used to the spotlight by now, but it appears that his nerves get the best of him right before he was set to start singing.
It could have been the tassel on his graduation cap too, but regardless of what was behind the brief mess up, Tongi laughingly said:
“Restart, let’s restart.”
Good thing he didn’t do that on American Idol…
Once Iam gets rolling though, the beautiful song that seems like the perfect match for his powerful vocals was met with raucous applause from his high school classmates and everyone that was attending the ceremony.
Take a look:
