WASHINGTON – A local singer wants to bring reggae music back, but he’s taken an unconventional path to becoming a top contestant on NBC’s hit show “The Voice.”

Nineteen-year-old Menlik Zergabachew’s parents immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia in hopes of giving their children a better life in Silver Spring.

“It was really bad over there at the time,” he says. “They hustled, hustled for us.”

Zergabachew attended Paint Branch High School in Montgomery County but then, to his parents’ disappointment, dropped out to pursue a career in music.

“Of course it was hard for them,” he says.

“That’s what they worked for their whole lives. But now, after seeing me work and seeing me on this TV show, they feel safer. They don’t have to worry about what I’m doing.”

He says he can barely remember his blind audition for “The Voice”:

“I really couldn’t tell you what I was thinking. The whole time I wasn’t even paying attention to the words I said. I was just over-analyzing every little thing I did up there. Like,