Grace VanderWaal

New future talent 
Source: NOS, NBC and Youtube

Grace VanderWaal was born on January 15, 2004, VanderWaal began composing her first songs at age three, using a wireless microphone. As a preteen, she found songwriting inspiration by watching movies and trying to imagine what a character was feeling, and "what it would be like if I were them, and wrote a song. A lot of my songs are like that." VanderWaal has written original songs (including those she has sung in competition) and recorded them, accompanying herself on ukulele, on her YouTube channel, Oh Never mind it's just me. She also sings and uploads covers of popular songs, including "Ex's and Oh's", "Pity Party", "Imagine", and "Breathe Me". After learning to play the ukulele, VanderWaal began to perform during open mic events at small venues near her home. For the June 7, 2016, broadcast during the eleventh season of NBC's America's Got Talent, VanderWaal auditioned with her original song, "I Don't Know My Name", and was Howie Mandel's "golden buzzer" act. Cowell called VanderWaal "the next Taylor Swift." She would continue the trend of performing only original songs, including her next performance at the quarterfinals on August 23, 2016, titled "Beautiful Thing", a song written for her sister. For the semifinals on August 30, she performed "Light the Sky", and for the September 13 finals, she sang "Clay", a song about being bullied. In September 2016, she signed a deal with Columbia Records. LINK Youtube and NBC