The Detroit Youth Choir is back on the America's Got Talent stage, and the community-based ensemble of inner-city kids is once again chasing a title no choir has ever claimed: AGT champion. The group's latest appearance builds on a run that began in 2019, when host Terry Crews hit his Golden Buzzer and openly wept watching the choir perform.
A Local Program With National Stakes
According to ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4, the Detroit Youth Choir performed Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' “Can't Hold Us” during its latest turn in front of the AGT judges, part of a continued push to become the first choir to ever win the competition. The group is a community-based choir that includes many inner-city children, ranging in age from 8 to 18, and rehearses four nights a week, with sessions running four to five hours at a time. Director Anthony T. White, who has led the choir for 21 years, has said the choir gives children something positive to be a part of, according to the same report.
Warm-ups before the group's performances have reportedly included choreography and three or four songs run through in sequence, a routine WDIV's Kimberly Gill has documented as she has followed the choir's competition arc. Gill, who plans to continue reporting on the choir's next AGT performance, noted that Local 4 has committed to following the group throughout the competition and plans to travel to Los Angeles as the season progresses.
The 2019 Breakthrough That Started It All
The choir's national profile traces back to summer 2019, when it advanced to the AGT quarterfinals in Los Angeles after Terry Crews hit the Golden Buzzer for the group, sending it straight to the live shows scheduled to begin in mid-August that year. Crews, an AGT host who hails from Flint, Michigan, told the choir at the time that “every man and woman on this stage represents me and where I came from,” per WDIV's original coverage. The choir ultimately finished as the runner-up on Season 14 that September, placing second behind grand prize winner Kodi Lee, according to ClickOnDetroit.
That runner-up finish set off a wave of civic recognition back home. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan presented Artistic Director Anthony White and the choir's 52 members with a Key to the City during a homecoming celebration at Campus Martius, as CBS News Detroit reported, and Hoodline covered the honor at the time. A coalition of Michigan foundations, including The Kresge Foundation, The Skillman Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, went further, establishing a $1 million endowment managed by the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan to sustain the choir's vocal training, arts education, and mentorship work in perpetuity, per the Skillman Foundation's announcement.
A Historic Second Golden Buzzer
Crews didn't stop at one Golden Buzzer for the group. When the choir returned for America's Got Talent: All-Stars in January 2023, Crews hit the buzzer for the Detroit Youth Choir a second time, making it the first act in AGT history to receive two Golden Buzzers from the same person, as captured in footage from AGT Auditions. The moment underscored a pattern for Crews, who pressed his Golden Buzzer again in June 2025 for the Funkateer Dancers, an Inkster-based dance quartet, an act Hoodline reported he championed while citing his own Michigan roots.
The choir's rise from local program to national fixture predates its television fame by decades. The Detroit Youth Concert Choir & Performing Arts Company was founded in September 1996 under conductor Fleming J. Ivory, with Anthony T. White taking over as artistic director in September 2001, according to footage from AGT Auditions. That history means White had already directed the choir for nearly 18 years before its 2019 breakout, a detail that frames the group's television success as an extension of long-running youth development work rather than a sudden discovery.
Beyond the AGT Stage
The choir has continued building out its national profile since its first AGT run. Disney+ released Choir, a six-part documentary series directed by Emmy winner Rudy Valdez, in January 2024, following White and the group as they rebuilt their roster after AGT and prepared for a performance at Carnegie Hall. The choir has also picked up formal recognition within the gospel music industry, earning a Stellar Gospel Music Award in July 2021 for its rendition of “Glory” and a second Stellar Award in 2023 for Youth Project of the Year for its Rockspell Music Album, per EIN Presswire.
The group has also used its platform for advocacy. In August 2022, more than 50 members of the choir released a choral cover of Guns N' Roses' “Sweet Child O' Mine” alongside a statement calling for policy action to protect children from gun violence, following mass shootings in Uvalde, Oxford, Highland Park, and Buffalo, according to a release distributed via PR Newswire. The choir's trajectory also fits into a broader pattern of urban youth ensembles using AGT for visibility, as seen when Chicago's Leo High School Choir competed on the show in June 2025, a story Hoodline covered as part of the same national trend.
For now, the choir's immediate focus remains on its current AGT run, with Local 4's Kimberly Gill continuing to track its progress toward the live shows in Los Angeles. Whether this appearance finally delivers the choir a win the franchise has never given a choral act remains to be seen, but the group's decades-long mission of giving Detroit kids a positive place to belong continues regardless of the outcome.
