Nene Royal Brings a White Stripes Riff to the America’s Got Talent Final
Nene Royal was 16 when she won the 21st season of ‘America’s Got Talent.’ The guitarist and singer from Phuket, Thailand, closed her competition run with a heavy treatment of The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army.’
The riff is recognizable almost immediately. Royal uses that familiarity as an opening, then gives the song a larger electric guitar sound suited to her approach.
Her guitar has a role in every part of the performance. It frames the vocal, carries the riff and takes over at points where the arrangement opens up.
The changes between singing and playing give the piece its shape. One part makes room for the other, even at the points where the sound is at its fullest.
That balance had become a recognizable part of Royal’s run. The final gave her another chance to show how she could keep both the vocal and the instrument at the center of a rock arrangement.
Watch the performance
Her audition introduced the approach with The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie.’ She could shift from a more contained line to a harder guitar sound while keeping the song’s underlying tension.
In the quarterfinals, she played Soundgarden’s ‘Black Hole Sun.’ The performance earned a Live Golden Buzzer and showed how well her style could work with a slower and darker song.
Those choices trace a path through different kinds of rock. What ties them together is the way Royal uses the guitar to change the scale and mood of a section.
‘Seven Nation Army’ gives her a particularly spare idea to build on. Once the riff is in place, the audience can hear what she does to increase the pressure around it.
Stage presence is part of that effect. Royal can carry the attention from one phrase to the next even as she shifts between playing and singing.
The television setting gave an established rock song a new audience and gave a young player room to show a version shaped around her own strengths.
Her decision to end with a guitar-driven performance also made the progression from the audition easy to follow. The sound was bigger by the final, and the musical identity was already there in the first round.
Winning at 16 took her from a run of individual performances to a season title. The result gives viewers who first encountered one of her clips a reason to revisit the rest.
Start with the riff in the finale, then listen for how Royal places her voice against it. Those exchanges make it possible to hear the singer and guitarist working as two parts of the same arrangement.
The two earlier recordings below make the path to the final easier to trace. Each asks for a different kind of intensity from the same performer.
Two more performances to explore
Golden Buzzer: Nene Royal ROCKS OUT To "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden | Quarterfinals | AGT 2026
‘Black Hole Sun’ is the quarterfinal performance that earned her a Live Golden Buzzer. It shows how she handles Soundgarden’s darker atmosphere while still bringing the electric guitar forward.
16-Year-Old Nene Royal Is Shy… Until She Starts Singing "Zombie" | Auditions | AGT
‘Zombie’ takes us back to the audition. The Cranberries song offers an early example of how Royal pairs an expressive vocal with a forceful guitar part.
