Mercy Chinwo - "I went the extra mile, now I want the Grammys"

They called it "the battle of the sexes" and now, after prevailing  Mercy Chinwo has revealed the secret recipe that led her to victory in the just concluded second season of Nigerian Idol. Still basking in the euphoria of her victory, she told Y Naija that she had to go the extra mile
and garnish her natural vocal talent with impressive stage performance.

The moment she was declared winner

Mercy who had barely scraped through the last Top 30 stage of the competition further disclosed that whilst being true to herself, she tried to learn as much as possible from her musical director and often had to stretch herself beyond her comfort zone to pull off tough numbers like Fela Anikulapo's Zombie which eventually netted her an amazing A+++ score from Femi Kuti.

Curiously, this young, gifted and pretty new star is humble to a fault and so unassuming she did not only learn from her co-contestants but also simply could not understand what people saw in her to vote her to victory so overwhelmingly. May be it was her hairdo she teased. Or perhaps it was her audacious fashion sense and colourful shoes in particular, we might add!!!

Overwhelmed with elation

From the look of things, it must have been all those things that she so perfectly packaged together and all said and done, Mercy's personal motto of "Pay now and play later" did pay off literally as she was the last one standing on the night in what turned out to be the "battle of the sexes", scooping a whopping cash sum of $100,000 and a record deal to the bargain! But all that's not quite enough for our petite Mercy, she says she has her eyes fixed on the GRAMMYS.... eventually. In the meantime, she intends to hit the ground running by commencing work on her first single, she says.