Wherever there’s a mic you’ll find Blake Lewis.
The runner-up on season six of “American Idol,” who now lives and performs in Las Vegas — “anywhere they’ll give me a mic,” he says — will headline this year’s Pikes Peak Pride festival. He’ll perform Saturday at Alamo Square Park. The festival is free.
“I’ve had mic envy since I was a kid,” Lewis said from home in Vegas.
The weekend’s festivities, which come during Pride Month, include a sober garden, where mental health organizations will be on hand to provide resources and information, activities for kids, more than 130 vendors, food and live music and entertainment, including Kylie Sonique Love, the winner of season six of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” in 2021.
Sunday will feature the annual parade at 11 a.m. along Tejon Street between Platte and Vermijo avenues. Last year’s parade attracted 15,000 watchers, and about 25,000 people attended the festival as a whole.
“We’re trying to bring everyone together,” said Pikes Peak Pride Executive Director Jessica Laney.
“Pride’s not just for LGBTQ people. Everyone can have pride in themselves and being an authentic individual.”
Growing up with a professional bluegrass-rock singer mother in a house full of music, it’s no wonder Lewis lives the life he does. And being an only child and the only kid on the block meant he had to find ways to entertain himself. Growing up in the ’80s, he was entranced by Robin Williams on “Mork & Mindy,” Michael Jackson and Saturday morning cartoons. From that bubbling stew of pop culture, he developed his signature sounds.
“I’d have all my toys, watching cartoons and making crazy noises,” he said. “You have to make your own fun as a kid before cellphones and the internet.”
But all those crazy noises turned into something that’s fueled his career: beat boxing. He saw m-pact, an cappella group that beatboxed, and thought, “Hey, I was doing that. Making beatboxes and little patterns, but I didn’t know it was called beatboxing.”
He was pretty good right away, he says, because he’d been doing it unknowingly all his life. Then he fell in love with R&B: Boyz II Men, 112, Blackstreet. And hip-hop: Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie and The Fat Boys. After high school, he started a hip-hop group and a cappella group, began hosting raves and doing open mics. He was a full-time professional musician doing dozens of shows every month for years before nearly winning “American Idol,” a reality TV competition he’d never watched.
His post-show debut album, “A.D.D. (Audio Day Dream) was released in 2007, and his first single, “Break Anotha,” hit at No. 10 on the charts. But doing the show and living through the aftermath changed him and his perspective. He got a blistering wake-up call about the music industry, he says.
“You become a cog in the machine,” he said. “You have all these yes people. Instead of you handling it, it handles you. I found it a lot to be in Los Angeles. If you’re not true to yourself, you get swallowed up and spit out.”
Now he performs weekly in clubs and hotels around Las Vegas, produces music for film and TV, and continues to write his own music.
Lewis has long performed at gay pride festivals — they’re one of his favorite audiences, he says.
“You get some wild characters at pride,” Lewis said. “They’ll tell you straight up if they like something or not. I love my LGBTQ audiences. And being an ally, I’m honored I get to play for everyone.”
Pride festivals are particularly poignant and important to Laney, a transgender person who was first able to be herself at a pride event, she says.
“Pride has a special place in my heart to be a safe space to be yourself,” she said.
“Being able to provide that same experience for others means a lot.”
