Lakshmi Sarah [00:00:59] That is a good question. My older sister is like a serious karaoke fan. So like I grew up around a super fan, but I would not say I myself am like a super fan, but like, yeah, I dabble.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:14] Lakshmi Sarah is a producer and reporter for KQED.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:01:18] I do love like a little California girls
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:21] Of course.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:01:21] or or like like a good TLC, you know
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:27] Well, we’re talking about this competitive karaoke league that you actually visited. How did you come across it and where is it exactly?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:01:37] A friend from high school was telling me she joined a competitive karaoke league and of course I was like, excuse me, what, please tell me more, what is this, what’s going on? So yeah, I heard about it from her. The league is called KaraOakland and it takes place every Monday at 7 p .m. at the Legionnaire Saloon in Oakland.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:00] And can you describe it for me? Like, what did it look like? What were the vibes?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:02:06] Yes, yes. So every night has a theme and the theme for the night that I went was baby making music.
Announcer [00:02:12] End of this song. So you have until the end of somebody making love to someone else to get your voice in.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:02:20] So you walk in to a bar. There is a little stage at one end near some pinball machines. Little stage and then to the right of the stage there are a few different tables and each table is like a group of people. Those are the teams and I mean when I first walked in the teams were like each at their table and they were like discussing, almost like huddled like game time. There were props, there were costumes, there were wigs, there were people like in deep discussion about like you know practicing their moves. Some of them were like wearing white doctor coat things, and then some of them were like dressed all as cows. And then there’s just like people milling about waiting for the competition to start.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:16] As you mentioned, it’s a competitive karaoke league, and I’m imagining all these different teams, their songs that they’re preparing. How exactly does this whole thing work?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:03:28] The way that it works is you sign up in advance, you join a team, you can bring your own team or you can join a random team, and then each week your team competes against the other teams in the league. Each team chooses three different songs on the theme night and then they go through and each team performs the song. There’s about six teams and about six people on each team. after the first round, then there’s voting. After the second round, then they vote, and then the final round, then people vote.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:01] I mean, Lakshmi, who is going to these things? Can you talk about like the range of people who are participating in this competitive karaoke league?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:04:11] There’s definitely a range of people. A question could be who was not going.
Adrienne Luna [00:04:15] I’m actually a lawyer, I just really like to sing. I don’t really have a good…
Lakshmi Sarah [00:04:19] I spoke with Adrienne Luna, who is a lawyer, and she really enjoys just coming out and dressing up and having fun and sort of a way to unwind after work.
Adrienne Luna [00:04:31] It’s extremely supportive. I mean, this is now my third season coming back, and there’s never a week where it’s boring. I mean, even right now, it’s packed to the brims. It’s always such a good time, so that’s what really keeps me coming back.
Omar Luna [00:04:50] And then for me as a just a casual it’s been fun to get me out of my shell because I never used to sing
Lakshmi Sarah [00:04:57] And I also spoke to Omar Luna and he enjoys it because it brings people together from a range of different groups and he was also saying that he had never used to sing until he saw other people doing it and so then he comes and occasionally participates.
Omar Luna [00:05:16] You get a lot of casual people that just come out and they even want to join the league but I met a lot of like really good individuals just just hanging out on a Monday night.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:26] Wow, that’s pretty cool. I feel like it sounds like it’s pretty open to whoever, and you don’t really have to have, like, a musical theater or singing background.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:05:36] Definitely a range of talents
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:42] I mean, whose idea was all of this, and what’s the idea behind it?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:05:47] So, Melody White is the founder and lead commissioner, and she had seen a karaoke league in D .C. and thought it was cool, and then she actually joined one in San Francisco, but she’s based in the East Bay, so she wanted to bring it to Oakland.
Melody White [00:06:02] everything just fell into place, because once you come up with the name KaraOakland, you just can’t not like start a karaoke league? It’s just part of, that’s just how that works.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:06:10] And so she started it to sort of just bring people together and do karaoke.
Melody White [00:06:16] Oakland’s a great place for it. There’s a lot of recovering theater kids, I guess. I’m not sure.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:06:21] But then she also wanted it to be, you know, an educational experience. So the way they do voting is ranked choice voting, which is also the way that Alameda County and Oakland choose their elected officials.
Melody White [00:06:36] This is also an opportunity to teach people how ranked choice voting works so that they will be prepared for a real election!
Melody White [00:06:45] So the way it works is you put your number one at the top and then you rank them on down by your favorite. And we would love for you to choose based on performance, not like biases or because somebody paid you to.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:01] And was that an intentional choice to make it a ranked choice voting at this karaoke league?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:07:08] Yes, very much so. So she wanted to also educate people about how ranked choice voting works, and so every time that people vote, you see the ranked choice voting in practice. After the teams perform, then they’re like, okay, I loved this song, so I’m voting for that for the first one, and then they go down the line. So then the second team, I think, should be this one, then the third team, and the fourth team. And then if none of them get like 50 % or above, then they’ll eliminate the bottom one. And so then those votes are like redistributed above. And so it really makes it like clear what’s happening.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:47] And did you get the sense that people were like really digesting how rank choice voting works through this karaoke league?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:07:57] I did speak to a few different people to get a sense of how people were thinking about it or digesting or understanding.
Omar Luna [00:08:05] 50% of the people have to do have to go vote for them to get first and then second place votes are counted third place votes are counted…
Lakshmi Sarah [00:08:15] Omar Luna was saying that he had a better understanding of it by engaging with it.
Omar Luna [00:08:20] Which I actually didn’t even know. So it was actually cool for her to break it down. But yeah, this is now the third season that I’ve been coming and it’s been really fun.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:33] Why do you think this competitive karaoke league has gotten so popular?
Lakshmi Sarah [00:08:38] I mean, I think it’s a really funny, fun combination of like drag show, dance party, sing-along, participatory experience, and even, you know, it’s a competition, but everybody’s super supportive and like super excited about it and it really, I feel like it really brings people together, it gets people out of their house and in community with people that they might not normally be in community with.
Melody White [00:09:06] And people have made lifelong friends. There are real relationships that have popped up as a result of this.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:09:13] One of the reasons why Melody White, the founder and commissioner, started it was this idea of bringing people together for community, making friends, and especially making friends as an adult, because that can be a challenging thing.
Melody White [00:09:26] When a bunch of weirdos can get together, dress up in costumes, and sing their lungs out to a themed karaoke night. It’s good a time. It’s good.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:09:42] The finals are March 24th, and if you’re listening now and you’re interested, you can check it out tonight from seven to nine at the Legionnaire Saloon.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:55] Well, Lakshmi, thanks so much for sharing this super fun story with us, I appreciate it.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:09:59] Yeah, thank you. So should we go together, to karaoke?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:03] I do love karaoke, but I’m like kind of shy. I’m like more of the like room karaoke kind of gal.
Lakshmi Sarah [00:10:10] Okay, so maybe we can just like do one of the rooms like just just me and The Bay.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:16] Exactly, exactly. Bay-themed music.
