M-Net (DStv 101) has revealed the voting results for the second season of The Voice South Africa that saw Craig Lucas (24) from Elsies River in Cape Town who snagged a commanding lead of 20.18% of the 1.67 million votes cast in the last week before this past Sunday's live finale.
While the second season again saw voting interference when illegal, paid-for social media posts were made to try and boost certain contestants' votes, M-Net said it didn't have an impact.
Last week before Sunday evening's finale, Craig Lucas came out tops with 20.18% of the votes ahead of runner-up Josh Ansley’s 16.89%.
Nabbing the third and fourth position was a neck-on-neck race for Samantha Leonard and Caroline Grace Brussow. In the end, Samantha secured 15.47% of the votes while 15.09% went to Caroline.
The two were chased by Fatman (Johan Brummer), who garnered 14.15% of the votes and followed by PJ Pretorius and Luke Lovemore who respectively received 10.70% and 7.52% of the votes.
M-Net says Craig Lucas wasn't linked to any of the paid-for marketing during the season that prompted M-Net
to investigate whether there were any abnormalities in the voting.
“The Voice SA has proven
to be a phenomenal platform from which to launch the
careers of exceptional vocalists and it’s exciting to know that our audience
fell in love with Craig’s unique tone and incredible passion for music," says Nkateko Mabaso, M-Net South Africa's general manager.
"There’s
a great future ahead of him in the South African music industry. We also believe that the intensive
training and mentoring that all the finalists received during the
course of the competition, from the very best musos in the
country, will stand them in good stead."
Craig Lucas' first single will be released soon and he will be going into the
Universal Music SA studios to start crafting the song from Monday 17 July.
He will also be singing the national anthem at the
final of the SuperSport Rugby Challenge, which happens to take place in Cape Town on Sunday 16 July.
Weekly voting results for The
Voice SA live shows:
Week 1 (21-23 May):
This season, M-Net expanded the show
with more – bigger and better - live shows, this time from
the Mosaiek Teatro in Fairland, Johannesburg.
Within the new structure of the
show, coaches Kahn and Karen could save one person from their teams of four
during the first live show. This singer was guaranteed a spot in the
Top 8 alongside the talent who received the most votes from the
public out of the remaining three singers in each team. It played out as
follows:
Team Kahn
Fatman
Saved by Kahn
Craig Lucas
61.77%
Zee Gqamana
20.75%
Freddy Llalendle
17.48%
Team Karen
Samantha
Leonard Saved by Karen
PJ Pretorius
73.95%
Amanda Faku
17.35%
Lindo Sithole
8.70%
Week 2 (28-30 May):
It was now time for Lira and Bobby to save
one talent, and for the public’s voting results to save another talent from
their teams. The results looked like this:
Team Lira
Tender
Mavundla
Saved by Lira
Luke Lovemore
57.24%
Marissa Petzer
21.87%
Bubbles Mnomiya
20.89%
Team Bobby
Josh
Ansley
Saved by Bobby
Caroline-Grace Brussow
44.69%
Marco Basson 35.94%
John James Janse van Rensburg 19.37%
Week 3 (4-6 June):
The outcome of the competition was now
fully in the hands of the voting public. In the first week of voting Josh led
the pack with his performance of Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire” and Caroline
came second after her rendition of “Unconditionally” by Katy Perry.
Josh Ansley
19.43%
Caroline-Grace Brussow
18.34%
Craig Lucas
17.40%
Fatman
14.34%
PJ Pretorius
10.47%
Luke
Lovemore
8.13%
Samantha
Leonard
7.53%
Tender
Mavundla
4.36%
Week 4 (11-13 June):
Josh was still in position number one
after his performance of “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Michael Bolton, but
Craig moved in extremely close behind him with his cover of Harry Styles’ “Sign
of the Times”.
Josh
Ansley
20.25%
Craig
Lucas
19.77%
Samantha
Leonard
15.17%
Fatman
12.31%
Caroline
12.01%
PJ Pretorius
11.79%
Luke Lovemore
8.70%
Week 5 (18-20 June):
Craig was elevated to the top in this week
with his stand-out performance of Prince’s “Purple Rain.”
Craig
Lucas
23.52%
Josh
Ansley
19.00%
Caroline-Grace
16.02%
Fatman
14.34%
Samantha
13.96%
PJ
Pretorius 13.16%
Week 6 (25-27 June):
For the sake of fairness and transparency,
after M-Net was made aware of paid-for marketing on the social media accounts
of some talent, M-Net nullified the votes for this week.
As M-Net
(and DeLoitte & Touche) also couldn’t determine with certainty whether
misconduct took place regarding paid-for marketing in the previous
two weeks, both PJ and Luke were given the option to return to the
show. Both singers opted to return for the final round of the competition.
Week 7 (final):
The
winner was determined by the voting public.
