A Greene County, Mississippi native is getting his shot at one of the most famous stages in American music. Diamond Walley, who performs as Diamond Khortez, was selected to compete in Amateur Night at the Apollo at Harlem’s historic Apollo Theater on a recent Wednesday.
Amateur Night has been testing new talent since 1934, helping launch careers for acts including Ella Fitzgerald, The Jackson 5, H.E.R. and Machine Gun Kelly. Performers must win over the notoriously candid Apollo audience to advance through rounds of competition later in the year, with the November grand finale carrying a $20,000 prize.
“It just means opportunity. To better myself and better my family and our situations and just being the best that I could be,” Walley said before the show.
Walley’s start came early — at age five, when his choir director at Mount Zion United Methodist Church asked him to help lead the ensemble in a song. “It was the first time I ever led a song in church or anywhere. And I just knew then I wanted to be a singer,” he said, noting that singing runs in his family.
He graduated from the Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven in 2015 and earned a music degree from Alcorn State University, along the way reaching the Hollywood round of American Idol in 2019. Now based in Atlanta, where he performs locally, Walley released his first extended play record, “7,” last year.
To reach the Apollo stage, Walley submitted an audition tape the previous October and was chosen to perform live. He planned to take the stage in a shirt signed by friends and family back in Greene County, singing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston.
“This is an opportunity that I’d never thought would come around because Amateur Night at The Apollo is where a whole bunch of superstars have been. It’s a dream, it really is,” he said.