6.7.24

Two Shockers compete on ‘Don’t Forget the Lyrics!’

Roy Moye III ’15, along with fellow WSU grad Justin Noel Hall ’14/19, competed on the TV game show Don’t Forget the Lyrics!, hosted by actress and comedian Niecy Nash. Moye and Hall, who met while students at Wichita State, traveled to Ireland for filming of the show’s May 30 episode, “It IS Rocket Science.” Despite not advancing to the $1-million-prize round, Moye says the experience was “a phenomenal time.”

The episode featuring Moye as a contestant with Hall as his “backup singer” — which in the game show’s parlance means a supporter who can be brought on-stage to help figure out the right lyrics to the song being performed – carries this descriptive overview: “an aerospace engineer shows off his out-of-the-world vocal chops.” In the competition, Moye was challenged to sing with the studio band as lyrics are prominently projected on screen until, all of a sudden, the music stops and the lyrics disappear. To move on to the next round, he had to sing the correct missing lyrics or to use one of his backups, for instance, to call in his backup singer.

Moye, who holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and is a former design engineer at Spirit AeroSystems, where he now works as a talent acquisition specialist for the Wichita-based company, showed his vocal chops with a lyric-perfect performance of Mario’s “Let Me Love You.” It was the lyrics to the Isley Brothers’ 1969 funk single “It’s Your Thing” that ended up tripping him up.

Faced with uncertainty about the song’s missing lyrics, Moye used another form of backup instead of calling on Hall, who, Moye says, he was thinking to save for upcoming rounds. Hall, meanwhile, knew he knew the lyrics. A two-time graduate of Wichita State with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music performance, Hall is a Wichita-based actor, model and musician with almost two decades of piano, percussion and vocal performance experience under his belt. He’s also half of the music duo Nikoyle Noel and director of music ministry at Holy Savior Catholic Church in Wichita.

Moye’s and Hall’s appearance on Don’t Forget the Lyrics! isn’t their first time to share a stage. Back in their college days at Wichita State, they each competed in the first ever Shockers Got Talent contest, which was a featured event in the festivities for Homecoming 2014: Cirque du WSU. Moye won with his version of Bruno Mars’ “Treasure,” taking home $2,000 in prize money. Hall was awarded the third-place prize. Two years later, Moye and Hall returned to campus as judges for the 2016 Shockers Got Talent competition. Now back in Wichita from their foray to Ireland, Moye and Hall are sharing their game show experiences. Don’t miss these two Shockers offering up their thoughts about “all the laughs and lessons we learned on this journey” on their two-part YouTube vlog — both parts are aptly titled: “What We Learned from Being on a TV Game Show” and “It’s Your Thing, But You Still Need Help!”