With over 4.5 billion views and 13.3 million subscribers on YouTube, 2 billion streams globally and 50 million total plays on Spotify, and 1.4 million social media followers, South Korea’s pop chameleon J.Fla is indeed the biggest singer you’ve never heard of – until now.
Today, J.Fla is sharing her new single “Starlight”, the third track to be revealed from her debut English-language EP via Ostereo. Her new release follows on from the dramatic “Are You My Villain’” and the airy and spacious “Good Vibe’” which have both surpassed over 2 million views on YouTube since their recent releases.
“Starlight” is about people keeping their dreams alive, accompanied by glistening, anthemic synths and fairytale-like visuals. “It conveys the wishful thinking I had when I was a little girl” explains J.Fla. ”For all the love and dreams I had when I was younger, I want to stay in that moment, to sparkle and twinkle forever”.
Check out the video for ‘Starlight’ – BELOW:
This indisputable social superstar had never intended to become a singer whose every upload generates millions of plays. She hadn’t even meant to be publicly known as a singer. A songwriter for the Korean and Japanese markets and originally signed to Sony Japan, she recalls “people coming back and asking ‘Who is the vocalist?’ Because I also did my vocal guides in English, they’d say, “Have you considered doing covers of pop songs as well? “ and I thought, “Well, I quite like singing, so why not?”
Her first cover, uploaded in the summer of 2011, was Beyonce’s “Halo” followed by Jessie J’s “Price Tag”. Armed then with only an acoustic guitar and a cheap camera, her calm confidence and the strength of her voice was immediately noticeable, as was her ability to emotionally embody these difficult songs despite not being fluent in English. Her fan base grew dramatically, driving her covers towards hundreds of thousands of views, then millions, as she took on songs from the biggest names and vocals in pop – Adele, Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Sia, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Sam Smith, Kelly Clarkson – even Queen, and infused them with her own distinctive combination of sweetness, power and warmth.
“Starlight” is glorious, enchanting, Asian pop with perky, sparkly synths, delicate, sweet vocals and one of the most delightfully engaging videos to be seen in a long time. Those qualities will be front and centre on her debut English-language EP, with effervescent “Starlight” showcasing another side to J.Fla’s talent. She appears to be impossible to box as merely a delicate songbird.
2019 is the year J.Fla channels her incredible worldwide popularity into something fresh and alluring – J.Fla 2.0.
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