Star Sparkle Blog

I've been doing the C-pop Saturday feature more regularly this year, and it's time for the first one of the summer!   Meiqi- Jiang This is  Jiang by Chinese singer Meiqi . Her full name is Meng Meiqi (the surname is first) and she is a member of Korean/Chinese girl group Cosmic Girls and also the Chinese idol girl group Rocket Girls 101 . Born in Henan province in China, Meiqi moved to South Korea  aged 15 to become a trainee. She made her music debut as a member of Cosmic Girls (also known as WJSN) with the mini album Would You Like? in early  2016. In 2018 she competed in Produce 101, the Chinese version of the Korean reality music show, and made it to the final to become a member of Rocket Girls. In April Meiqi released her debut EP Jiang and single of the same name. It became the fastest selling digital album of 2019 . In addition to singing, Meiqi is an actress. Her films include Step Up China (2018), Autumn in my Heart/Autumn Fairy Tale (2019) an...

Today's video is Wololo by Kenyan rapper and singer Bey T .  She has Kenyan, Eritrean and Ethiopian heritage (I did also read that she has American heritage, presumably European but can no longer find a source for it) and was a finalist in Nigerian born, Ghana based singer and entrepreneur Mr Eazi's emPawa Africa artist accelerator programme. A mentorship boot camp was held in South Africa and she represented Kenya. One of her most well known songs so far is If They Dunno. I've featured African music on the blog before but most of the stuff I listen to is West African (Nigerian and Ghanaian mostly). I do also like some Tanzanian singers such as TID and Vanessa Mdee , and Perola who's from Angola, but haven't heard many Kenyan songs, so it was cool to come across Bey T on Youtube. Wololo was released in May. For more on Bey T check out these links: Introduction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0t-tWKpMhQom/ Official FB page (not updated recentl...

The American reality show Teen Mom (now known as Teen Mom OG) is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. I've watched since the first season (or series as we also call it in the UK) and I watched 16 and Pregnant (the original show which TM is a spin-off from) before that. I remember watching 16 and Pregnant in 2009, I think  it took us longer to get the episodes in the UK, and  we got that in late 2009. I believe they first showed Teen Mom here in 2010, since it didn't air in the US until December 2009. Teen Mom finished after 4 seasons in 2012, but returned in 2015 renamed as Teen Mom OG (short for Original Girls). Since then the show has gone through several changes- the departure of Farrah Abraham and the introduction of new mums Bristol Palin and Cheyenne Floyd . Bristol left in April , having said before that she wasn't happy with how she was being portrayed, but Cheyenne is back with the other girls. Original star Maci also recently said she's not happy wi...

This week's video is Feels Right by Alina Baraz . She's an American singer who started out releasing music online. She collaborated with Danish music producer Galimatias on the 2015 EP Urban Flora, which they worked on via the internet, not actually meeting until it was finished. In January 2017 Alina released the single Electric with American singer Khalid , and went on to bring out her debut solo EP The Color of You in April 2018. Her other singles include Drift, Fantasy (both with Galimatias), and Buzzin. She's  also released music video for tracks from The Color of You (although they may not be official singles) and is currently working on her debut studio album. Alina's latest EP is The Color of You Remixes which came out in February. Feels Right is from The Color of You and was uploaded in September. For more on Alina check out these links: Official site: http://www.alinabaraz.com/ Official FB page: https://www.facebook.com/alinabaraz Soundcloud:...

It's almost summer, so here are some more new music releases for the upcoming season. :) My last New Music Releases post was in May. You can read that here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/05/new-music-releases.html B Young- Gucci Demon First up is British rapper and singer B Young with Gucci Demon. It was released on 6th June and the video has a Bonnie and Clyde theme! Janine- Vacation New Zealand singer Janine   recently uploaded a new song to YouTube. It's called Vacation and came out on 7th June. She's sadly been dropped from her record label but it's great that she's still going to be releasing music. :) Vacation has a real summer vibe. Tinashe- No Guidance American singer Tinashe (who also separated from her record label ) just released a remix version of her song No Guidance. This is an audio and it premiered on 11th June. I don't think there's an official upload of the original song but you can listen her (may ge...

Today's video is Get it by Bulgarian Russian singer Kristian Kostov . He represented Bulgaria in the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Beautiful Mess. For more on him and to watch his Eurovision performance, visit this post: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2018/05/selection-of-eurovision-songs.html Get It is Kristian's latest single and was released in April. It's from his debut EP Shower Thoughts which came out last August. He also released another EP Prologue this March. To keep up with Kristian follow his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kristian.kostov.official Eurovision fan? Check out these posts: Countdown to Eurovision 2019:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2019.html Eurovision Favourites 2019: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/05/eurovision-2019-favourites.html The contest is over for another year but it's now only 11 months till next year's, which will be held in the Netherlands...

American singer BANKS   and Swedish/British singer Mabel are releasing albums this summer. I'm a fan of both of them, so I'm looking forward to the new releases! In anticipation of the new albums, here's a round-up of their previous music featured on the blog. :) BANKS First up is BANKS (real name Jillian Banks) whose 3rd album III is set for release in July. Read more about it at the links below: https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8512881/banks-iii-new-album-interview http://read.tidal.com/article/banks-iii The first single from the album is Gimme, which came out last month. It was BANKS  first solo release for two years. Listen to the audio or watch the music video here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/05/weekly-music-video_22.html Update 12/6/19: Here's another new song from the album, Look What You're Doing featuring Francis & The Lights . This is the lyric video: Update 5/7/19: III is due for release on 12th July. ...

Today's video is See U Never by NIKI . Her full name is Nicole Zefanya and she's from Indonesia. She started out uploading covers to YouTube and  released her own songs Polaroid Boy and  Anaheim. NIKI moved to America in 2017 and signed to the American media company 88rising which primarily manages Asian artists (Chinese singer Lexie Liu is also represented by them). She released the single See U Never in July 2017 and I LIKE U in September. In May 2018 NIKI released Vintage, the first single from her debut EP Zephyr which came out later that month. Her  other singles include Dancing with the Devil and lowkey, and her 2nd EP wanna take this downtown? was released last month See U Never is an R'n'B song in the 90s style. Nice, chilled song. NIKI listened to American R'n'B music such as Destiny's Child and Aaliyah when she was young , since it was the kind of music her mum liked. She was actually only born at the end of the 90s, which makes me feel a b...

Today I thought I'd write about some of my current favourite songs for a change. On my other blog The Seasonal Life I wrote a quick list in my May Update , so I had the idea to expand more on it here. May make this  a regular feature! :) Janine songs Never The Right Time I first heard of New Zealand singer Janine in 2017 but started listening to her music more recently. Never The Right Time is one of my current fave songs and it was a Weekly Music Video last month. Watch it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/05/weekly-music-video_8.html Believed In You I listened to her album 99 on Spotify and ended up buying Never The Right Time and Believe in You on iTunes a couple of weeks ago. Here's Believe In You: Be By Myself I also bought Be By Myself a few days ago. Please note that the song is explicit. :) Also check out Numb which I bought at the same time as Be By Myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX365sQKBxI BANKS- Gimme This is BANKS...