By Adriana Duarte ’27
Derby High School held its 7th annual Lip Sync Battle on Thursday, Nov 7. This event was an event where any student that is interested can participate in. It’s a fun event during the school year before the holidays where all students can show off forms of their creativity. There were many fun acts that performed. There were specifically ten amazing acts with many different students involved with lovely music. There were three amazing judges. Those judges were John Stanley (ELL teacher), Jenny Lee Hoffman (Guidance Secretary), and then finally we had Nick Ruel (Music/Band teacher). As a member of the audience it was very enjoyable! There were a lot of students, family members and staff present. We heard different varieties of music as well such as, R&B, rock, hip-hop, jazz etc. The audience was cheering, there were giggles, and it was all around a fun time. The winner ended up being Karol Pastrana Amaya with her Colombian heritage performance and her amazing dance moves. 2nd place was given to Joel Young, Kailyn Kross, Ariana McNeil, and Alex Davis with their R&B Mashup. Finally 3rd place was given to Julianna Meagher, Atiana Reyes featuring Atianas younger family members.
The order of performances were as follows:
- “Thunderstruck” by ACDC performed by Mounir Elias ’26
- “Yo” by Chris Brown / “Break The Ice” by Britney Spears / “Big Mama” by Big Latto performed by Rashiem McNeil ‘27 and Shirley Diglio-Guerrette ’27
- “Instead” by Stacie Orrico performed by Saturn Cooper ‘25
- “Timber” by Pitbull and Ke$ha performed by: Joseph Izquierdo ‘25 and Aniyah Roman ‘28
- “OMG” by Usher / “Fergalicious” by Fergie performed by Sofia Rudus ‘26 and Nedaat Masiat ‘26
- “Crank That” by Soulja Boy / “I Want It That Way” by Backstreet Boys performed by Donella Deija ‘26, Jenaiya Mena ‘26, Aly Fernandez ‘26, Alexis Cavallaro ‘26
- R&B Mashup performed by Kailyn Kross ‘27, Ariana McNeil ‘27, Alex Davis ‘27 and Joel Young ‘26
- Colombian Heritage Mix performed by Karol Pastrana Amaya ‘27
- “Better Place” by NSYNC performed by Atiana Reyes ‘25, Julianna Meagher ‘27
- “Whoomp! There It Is” by Tag Team performed by Cassie Silkoff ‘25 and Emma Hyder ‘25 with the DHS cross country team.
All of these performances were amazing and all had different aspects of creativity and uniqueness in them. All acts were competing for money in the form of gift cards! These rewards are what usually drives the students to prepare well so they can be considered as the best act of the night. Assistant Principal Ray Coplin, arranged for all of the contestants to get a pizza party that was held in the Library on November 18 2024, on top of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place rewards. All 28 contestants did amazing. Coplin during his opening statement said they all signed up a week prior to the Lip Sync.
I was curious about what went behind the scenes and the judging as well. I interviewed judge Stanley, about how each act was scored, and he said“The factors for the final score are accuracy, creativity, and showmanship.
The easiest part of judging is getting to sit there and listen to good music and watch the students perform. The hardest part is deciding who will win between the closest acts. If two acts are really good it is sooooo hard to decide who deserves to win. There was no decision to make me the judge, Mr. Coplin just asked for volunteers and I said yes. I loved it so much that I decided to do it every year since.
If there was a favorite act that I had to pick, I would say that I was very proud when Karol won this year because she is one of my ELL students. I have to say that I do enjoy the performances that include hip hop music from the early 2000’s because that was when I was a teenager and I have so many fond memories of those songs and hanging out with my friends and listening to them.” I attempted to ask the other judges Mrs. Hoffman, and Mr. Ruel but they were incredibly busy which was okay! It was a wonderful experience all around for the judges/audience. Till next year!
The Raider Press 