Christina Grimmie: Her Legacy

With all the talents in the world, you’d think that it would be hard to be dis­covered. However, that wasn’t the case for Christina Grimmie, thanks to the power of so­cial media. She’s an Ameri­can singer, songwriter, and YouTuber from Marlton, New Jersey. She started to post videos on YouTube in 2009 with a cover of Han­nah Montana’s “Don’t Wan­na Be Torn.” She was then discovered by Selena Go­mez’s mother, Mandy Teefy who, together with her hus­band decided to manage Christina. Selena mentored her and in January of 2012, Christina moved to L.A to pursue her music career.

Christina was known for her song covers on You­Tube. One of her most fa­mous covers is her rendi­tion of David Guetta and Sia’s hit single “Titanium,” which garnered 20.6 million views after being released 4 years ago. She also did famous covers like “Just A Dream” by Nelly, “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz and “Counting Stars” by One Republic.

After 5 years, she auditioned for the 6th Sea­son of The Voice. Her Blind Audition piece was Miley Cyrus’ Billboard #1 single, “Wrecking Ball,” and the video of her performance of the song went viral -- appearing all over social media platforms. She also sang famous pop songs by different artists like Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” for the Battles Round 1, “Counting Stars” for Round 2, and “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry for one of the live performanc­es. Another genre she sang was R&B. “How To Love” by Lil Wayne and “Hold On, We’re Going Home” by Drake and Majid Jordan were some of them. She also sang iconic songs like “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. She went on and moved to the Finals but only placed third behind winner Josh Kaufman and second placer Jake Worthington.

Although she is known for YouTube and her appearance on The Voice, she also released original music. She released her first Extended Play (EP) called “Find Me” back in 2011 and, by this time, she was already singing as a background singer for Selena Gomez & the Scene and opened for Selena and the Jonas Brother’s tour. “Advice” was her first sin­gle from this EP which she performed for several award shows. After 2 years, she re­leased a full-length album called “With Love.” She was only able to release 2 singles from this album: “Tell My Mama” and “Feelin’ Good” respectively. To promote this album, she was able to open Selena Gomez’s Stars Dance Tour. After her The Voice appearance, she signed with Island Records. With her new record, she released her single “Must Be Love” on July of 2014. After the release of the single, she was able to tour the world and she even had 2 shows here in the Philippines that were sponsored by Ayala Malls. After being dropped from Island Records, she released more singles like “Cliché” and “Shrug” that were both released in 2015. Success continued to follow her. She released her second and last EP, “Side A” which included 4 songs. She said “Side B” would follow, and she also hoped to release her second album.

Her fans were known as the, “Team Grimmie” who start­ed supporting her during the competition on The Voice. They support­ed Christina through ev­erything she has done. They were there when she was asking for votes for contests like The Voice and iHeart­Radio. Team Grimmie also defended Christina. Recently in the 2016 Teen Choice Awards, the fans claim of using Christina for promotion because, after winning Choice Web Star and featuring a tribute to the victims of gun violence, she was not mentioned all throughout the show.

She has come so far with an inspiring past be­hind her and a bright future ahead. But out of all the shows and the rising fame, she was deprived of her freedom to live. Her death was real­ly untimely. She was shot 4 times by Kevin Loibl while she was signing autographs after her show in Orlando on June 10, 2016. She was then rushed to the Orlando Regional Medical Center where she was pronounced dead before 11:00 pm of that night. Ev­eryone was taken by sur­prise for it all happened so quickly, and so they found the news quite unbeliev­able. Fans everywhere were greatly distraught. Dozens of celebrities took to social media to express their grief including her The Voice coach, Adam Levine who even offered to pay for her funeral service. Some artists even made tributes to her in their shows such as her good friend, Selena Gomez who broke down onstage before her tribute to Chris­tina. Her death resulted in calls for increased security at performing arts venues. Billboard even published “An Open Letter to Con­gress: Stop Gun Violence Now” on June 23.

Christina was such an amazing artist with a good heart and a great per­sonality. Though her time here on Earth was short-lived, she will stay in our hearts and minds forever. She will always be remem­bered for being a wondrous talent that was taken from the world too fast and she will be missed dearly. And, as said in her song, “I Bet You Don’t Curse God,” there’s a thousand things you think you don’t deserve. The whole world thinks and believes that she doesn’t deserve such injustice. She doesn’t deserve to die at such an early age.

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