Idol's Anwar: What's His Secret?

Apr 24, 2005 04:00 AM ET
by Daniel R. Coleridge

While other American Idol contestants pout and tear up during Simon Cowell's put-downs, braided Jersey boy Anwar Robinson kept a Zenlike (read: kinda boring) calm throughout it all. Did he meditate, drink a lot of green tea, pilfer treats from Paula Abdul's medicine cabinet or what?

"[There's] no additives to this," Robinson says. "This is all 100 percent natural.

"A lot of it's my upbringing and a lot of it is faith," he continues. "You just know your place. You know where you stand, you know what you're up against and you keep reality at the helm of your perspective."

While we're keepin' it real, did Robinson — who's a gospel singer as well as a music teacher — ever turn a critical ear to his own performances? "Most definitely," he says. "On stage while you're doing things, it's kind of hard to be split between the adjudicator and the performer. It's like both are going at the same time. There will come a day when I grow as an artist where I abandon that judgmental mentality."

That said, he has no regrets about his song choices or the quality of his performances. "I wouldn't change a thing," he says, noting that "every week we lose another great contestant. You lose a good singer every week because America chose the Top 12. That's how it goes."

More importantly, we just have to ask: Was Carrie Underwood's Tuesday hairdo — Simon described her as "Barbie meets The Stepford Wives" — as scary as it looked on TV? "Carrie's hair was not scary and never has been," Robinson replies. "She's a very beautiful young lady who has the appeal to do many different looks, so it's good for her." Guess he told us.