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Artist
Whyte Lyte
12+ albums
about
When John Deterding walks out onto a stage to perform, he is not greeted by thousands of screaming fans ready to sing along with him. He performs for friends and smaller crowds wherever he can find them. The audiences that get the chance to see his performance will immediately notice something different about him. He does not swagger onto the stage like a star does. Deterding, who goes by the stage name Whyte Lyte, needs crutches to walk because he was born with cerebral palsy. “He’s not your normal kid,” said Eric Looft, a freshman majoring in secondary education at Kansas State. Looft first saw Deterding perform at the Kansas District Youth Gathering in 2007. “He gets up there and everybody is already judging him and you don’t think he’d be able to do anything. He surprises you. He’s pretty good.” Deterding agrees: “People perceive my music in the same way they make assumptions about anything else I do,” he said. “Some people seem to see the crutches or the wheelchair and automatically begin underestimating everything” Even though his disability is physically limiting, he does not feel limited in any other way. He feels that his special situations make him more unique. “How many people can say they're adopted by a family of a different race, in my case, an African-American adopted by white parents?” Deterding said. “Of those people, I can't imagine that many of them can say they are physically disabled and proud to be so. Beyond that, how many people are willing to rap ab
