Karaoke in Detroit: where can you sing tonight?

The first Rum Runners Dueling Piano Bar & Grill, the start of a dueling-piano chain that later reached Indiana, North Carolina and Florida, opened in downtown Lansing on June 1, 1996, across Michigan Avenue from the new minor-league ballpark.

In 1998 Metro Times readers voted Royal Kubo, a Filipino restaurant with a karaoke stage, the metro area's Best Karaoke, according to the paper's own venue listing.

In 2000 Metro Times readers again named Royal Kubo in Oak Park the Best Place for Karaoke in all counties, “for the umpteenth year in a row,” calling the strip-mall restaurant on Greenfield Road at I-696 a “karaoke kingdom” and nearly the only venue nominated in all four counties.

When Metro Times split its 2001 Best Karaoke vote by county, Wayne County got “No winner,” while Royal Kubo and Hamlin Pub tied in Oakland, Roger's Roost won Macomb, and Cub's AC and Theo's tied in Washtenaw.

Matt Giraud, who finished fifth in the eighth season of American Idol in 2009, had worked as a dueling piano player at Monaco Bay Piano Bar and Grill in downtown Kalamazoo, where the Kalamazoo Gazette interviewed him on his homecoming visit that May.

East Lansing's Crunchy's won Best Karaoke in City Pulse's Top of the Town readers' poll in 2011 with 291 votes, and it topped the karaoke category in every later year whose results we could check (2013–2016, 2018–2021 and 2025).

Metro Times' 2012 Best of Detroit picked a karaoke winner in each county: Limelight Sports Bar in Warren, Sneaker's Pub & Grill in Ferndale, Powell's Pub in Ypsilanti and Rockstarz Karaoke Bar & Grill in Garden City.

Garden City's Rockstarz ran its own Rockstarz Karaoke Challenge in 2012 and 2013, with qualifying rounds, semifinals, judges and a finals night, and posted full recordings on the bar's YouTube channel.

The Metro Times readers' poll crowned a Best Karaoke Bar every year from 2015 to 2022 (Rockstarz, Inn Place, Sneakers, Mutiny Bar, UFO Factory, Sneakers, then Checker Bar twice) and renamed the category Best Karaoke Night in 2023.

On the TV show Bar Rescue in 2015, host Jon Taffer renamed Southfield's Jazz Katz supper club Back Beat Piano Bar; the bar closed in 2016.

Mutiny Bar's Thursday karaoke in Southwest Detroit, hosted by Shantasy Island with a 28,000-song catalog, won Metro Times Best Karaoke Bar in 2018 as both staff pick and readers' choice.

In June 2018 City Pulse profiled karaoke night at Crunchy's in East Lansing, a Michigan State student hangout where one regular admitted knocking over a chair to improve his stage presence.

In August 2018 the touring “World's Largest Karaoke Tour” came back to Detroit for its second year, WDIV reported.

Metro Times' 2019 guide to Detroit karaoke nights called Madison Heights' 168 KTV Bistro “Michigan's only full-service karaoke bar,” where guests rent private rooms, Lost in Translation-style.

The same 2019 guide mapped Detroit's karaoke hosts: Jen David's “Jennyoke” Sundays at UFO Factory, Polish John's David Bowie-heavy Sundays at Trixie's in Hamtramck, musician Stef Chura's Tuesdays at Deluxx Fluxx, KJ Robby Rob at 3rd Street Bar and Delux Lounge, and Cole Davis's wig-filled “Haireoke” at PizzaPlex.

HALO Bar & Lounge, the Warrendale bar that opened in 1980 as the Hayloft Saloon, won Metro Times Best Karaoke Night in 2025.

HALO Bar & Lounge in Detroit hosted qualifying rounds of the 2025 Karaoke World Championships USA (for example Qualifying Round 4 on June 12, 2025), and Ken Mann won the Michigan state gold medal with Chris Stapleton's “Tennessee Whiskey,” scoring 119.5 out of 120.

The 2025 Michigan duet title in the Karaoke World Championships USA went to J. Capri and Joshua Davis with Motown's “Ain't No Mountain High Enough” (Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell), and Team Michigan singers Ken Mann, Alaina Kerr and Brooklyn Carney went on to the national finals in Las Vegas.

In August 2026 Ed Sheeran surprised diners at Herokisan, a Detroit restaurant, by singing a karaoke duet with a fan minutes before closing time.

Adam's Apple Bar in Detroit won Best Karaoke Bar in WDIV's 2026 Vote 4 The Best, a poll that drew more than 163,000 votes in its finalist round across 80 categories.