<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Having found favor with the judges early on for her unique style both personally and musically, Naima Adedapo easily made her way into the Top 13 of American Idol. However, she struggled to make her renditions of popular songs - from Tina Turner&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;What&amp;#039;s Love Got To Do With It&amp;#039; to Elton John&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m Still Standing&amp;#039; - resonate with viewers. After falling into the bottom three yet again, the 26-year-old Milwaukee native was sent home during Thursday night&amp;#039;s live results show. Here&amp;#039;s what she told reporters about her experience...  &amp;gt; Click here to read Thia&amp;#039;s exit Q&amp;amp;A The girls in the competition seem to have a difficult go of things and get voted out first. Was that something that concerned you? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think we were really concerned. I think we all have faith in ourselves but when it comes down to it, the reality is that more than 50% of the audience is teenage girls. Once they get a crush, we&amp;#039;re done, you know what I mean? They dominate and that&amp;#039;s all right. We didn&amp;#039;t have too many conversations about it though because we are confident in our work. It&amp;#039;s just the reality of the situation. I feel like my audience was more of the older crowd who aren&amp;#039;t necessarily as technology savvy, you know? I&amp;#039;d get people telling me that they voted for me three times whereas the teens will do it 500!&amp;quot;  Lauren seemed really upset with the results last night. Were you two close? &amp;quot;She kind of cried a little bit but that&amp;#039;s a natural thing. It&amp;#039;s okay to do that. I think it&amp;#039;s very hard for her because not only was it me going - and I&amp;#039;ve been like a mother figure who&amp;#039;s always tried to get her to believe in herself and know that she&amp;#039;s beautiful - but more so it was Thia. They were in school together all the time and were really close so it really is like losing a best friend. I had my moments when I couldn&amp;#039;t hold it together like when I said goodbye to Jacob, so you get emotionally attached to these people. You&amp;#039;re living in close quarters and you start to learn their stories and personalities so it hurts to see people go.&amp;quot;  What will you miss most about the competition? &amp;quot;Shopping! That was one of the best parts for me. Performing is everything, it really is, but when you get to shop for accessories and shoes, I get a kick out of that. And then I get a bigger kick when it&amp;#039;s not expensive and I can get more things with my budget and whatnot. That was my release time, actually. It was really awesome to be able to create things and tag team with the stylist. She studied me and knew my style. She would have stuff hanging on the rack before we even went shopping! That was one of the best parts for me, I have to admit.&amp;quot; Tell us a little bit about your dance background - you were part of a troupe before coming on the show, right? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been a part of many dance troupes, actually. I used to do hip-hop but for most of my life I&amp;#039;ve done African dance. Any African dance company in Milwaukee I&amp;#039;ve been a part of! Dancing has always been part of my life, ever since I was a kid in Chicago. It&amp;#039;s just something I connected with. I also went to college and studied it - I got my BFA in dance. I could even do ballet if I tried. It&amp;#039;s not my realm and I might look weird doing pirouettes but dance is something I truly connected to. I always wanted to incorporate dance into my Idol performances. It&amp;#039;s unnatural not to move. You have to physically be engaged to be able to connect with the audience.&amp;quot; What was it like growing up in Chicago? Did that influence your musical interest? &amp;quot;Most definitely! Chicago is such a wonderful and beautiful city with a lot of culture. The scene that my mother kept me in growing up was all artists. She was a storyteller and she would incorporate me into her storytelling. I was always around artists, whether it was dancers or singers or actors. Chicago is full of entertainers and I think that really was the early shaping of my artistry.&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;d been in the bottom three previously. Were you trying to shake things up with this week&amp;#039;s reggae performance? &amp;quot;Yeah, well, I really just wanted to show every piece of me. That&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;ve wanted to do all along - I&amp;#039;ve been trying to take every opportunity to show something different about me. I hadn&amp;#039;t really gone roots reggae and that&amp;#039;s a big part of me. I love it and connect to it, so I did it. I had some people telling me that they were unsure about it but I&amp;#039;m really about staying true to myself. Once I have my mind set on something I just kind of go after it, so I did what I did and I have no regrets about anything I&amp;#039;ve done on the show. I&amp;#039;m just happy I was able to show that side of me.&amp;quot; Do you think being so different from the others might have worked against you in the eyes of the voters? &amp;quot;Yeah, I think that was a big thing. I think sometimes people just didn&amp;#039;t know where to place me or maybe they didn&amp;#039;t understand me sometimes. But honestly, the reactions that I&amp;#039;ve got from people have always been positive. People who were unsure of me still kind of liked me. I definitely struck people in a different kinda way and I think that because it was hard to place me in a certain category, that did have an effect on how people voted or perceived me.&amp;quot; American Idol airs Wednesday and Thursday nights on Fox "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/american-idol/interviews/a312348/naima-adedapo-american-idol/>