She’s been singing since the age of 2 and she says she has learned the spotlight is where she shines the brightest.
“I hope that I can reach out across the world and just sing to people,” Squires the The Tuscaloosa News.
While Squires, a sixth-grader at American Christian Academy, and has demonstrated her singing talents through performances around Tuscaloosa for years, she's about to become known nationwide for her lip-synching skills.
In August 2018, Squires traveled to Burbank, California, to film an episode of Lip Sync Battle Shorties for Nickelodeon. She was one of 20 kids to chosen nationwide, and her episode will air at 7:00 P.M. (ET/PT) on Friday, February 1, 2019.
The show, hosted by rapper and television personality Nick Cannon and YouTube sensation JoJo Siwa, is a children’s lip sync battle show where kids go head-to-head by lip-syncing their favorite songs in honor of artists they admire. The series is based on Paramount Network's Lip Sync Battle.
In Hailee's episode, titled "Hip Hop Ballroom, Fun Fishing Lake, New York Central Park Egg Hunt", Shorties will lip sync to songs by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, Maddie & Tae, and Bruno Mars in performances that will take viewers to a ballroom competition, a fishing lake with big surprises, and a colorful egg hunt in New York City.
“It was an amazing experience,” Squires said. “I was a little bit nervous to first go out there, but once I was out there, I met so many new amazing people. I absolutely loved it.”
After rehearsing her skit for three days, she finally got to see her set in the filming studio.
“I was blown away,” Squires said. “It was more than I could have ever dreamed of. I got to pitch them my idea for how I thought my dance skit should be, and they literally just made it come true. It was beyond awesome.”
Even though she's not even a teenager yet, Squires already has a number of musical accomplishments under her belt. It all began when she was 2 years old. She sang publicly for the first time when she went to hear her cousin, who she calls her Aunt Mary, perform and hasn’t stopped since.
“As soon as she got through with her song, my mom told Aunt Mary that I wanted to sing, and my first song was 'Jesus Loves Me,'" Squires said.
As she grew, so did her passion for music, and Squires began taking vocal lessons at age 7.
She made her television debut in 2015 when she appeared on Nashville Spotlight, a cable television show for kids based in Nashville, Tennessee. For 18 months, she traveled there every month to film, and this helped develop both her singing and performance skills.
Her cousins, Mary Katelyn Price and McCay Medders, were members of the Alabama Music Association, sparking Squires' interest in the association. Squires auditioned, tagged along with her cousins to the association's national competition in Tennessee, and won the 7-12 age division for the contemporary gospel category. From there, she represented the AMA as Youth Ambassador from 2016 to 2018, allowing her to attend events and promote the association.
In 2016, she traveled back to Pigeon Forge and won the North American Country Music Association Vocalist & Entertainer of the Year award in the traditional gospel category.
The next year, she traveled to the competition for a third time where she won the North American Country Music Association Vocalist & Entertainer of the Year award in traditional country, 7-12 division. Since then, she has won Kip Tyner’s Tuscaloosa Talent Search 2016 in the junior vocalist category, won the 2018 American Christian Academy Elementary Talent Show, and has spent the rest of her free time practicing and performing.
One of these notable performances was when she opened for Glen Templeton in June 2018 at The town of Brookwood's Summer Celebration. Also, over the Christmas holidays, she opened for Casey Thrasher at the Bama Theatre for the Angels Among Us show, which benefited the Sprayberry Education Center.
For the University of Alabama athletics, Squires has sung the national anthem for baseball, hockey, soccer, volleyball, basketball and gymnastics. Still on her list are tennis and football.
This spring, Squires will release her second CD, featuring the song “Bluejeans,” written for her by Jimmie Hyche and Jack Denton.
This year, she is also planning to perform at the Wounded Warrior Project auction and dinner in Saint Stephens on Feb. 2 and is going to continue her work for Tuscaloosa’s Eagles’ Wings charity as well as continue performing at other events.
“I was born to sing, I just hear music in my head and someday I hope I’m as famous as Carrie Underwood or Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn or even Vestal Goodman,” Squires said. “That would be awesome.”
Even with all the performances she’s done, her favorite location is still one of her firsts in Tannehill Opry in McCalla, Alabama.
Hailee Faith Squires - Lip Sync Battle Shorties Submission 2 from Rhonda Squires on Vimeo.
Squires has a strong social media presence and hopes it continues to grow as she develops as an artist. Her official pages can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
In addition to her videos of her performances, she has an official music video of her original song “Angel On My Shoulder” on YouTube, written by Hyche and Denton and produced by Lance Holloway.
To contact her about singing, email rsquires60@icloud.com, or to find out more about her, visit her website www.haileefaith.com.
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