Star Sparkle Blog

Time for a new instalment of my semi-regular series C-pop Saturday! This will probably be my last one of the year.:) Diana Wang- Make You Feel First up is Make You Feel by Dutch Chinese singer Diana Wang , a song with R'n'B vibes. It was released in August. Also check out the video for Diana's latest single Machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpdmHoTHilA Rainie Yang-INDULGING Here is INDULGING by Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang , who is also an actress and TV presenter. I think her full name is Yang Chen Lin (Yang is her surname/family name) and she is from Taipei. Rainie started out in the Taiwanese girl group 4 in Love in 2000 and was given the stage name Rainie. After the group disbanded, she moved into TV hosting and acting. In September 2005 Rainie released her debut solo album My Intuition (Chinese title Ai Mei), in Manadarin. To date she has released 11 more albums, including Meeting Love (2006), Not Yet a Woman (2008), Longing For (2011), Delete Reset Grow (2019)

This week's video is On Call by American songwriter turned singer Nija . Her full name is Nija (pronounced "Nee-zjuh", I think) Charles, she was born in New Jersey and is now based in LA. Nija started her career by writing and co-writing songs for popular artists, including Beyoncé and Jay Z's Heard About Us and Love Happy, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande's Rain On Me, Cardi B 's I Do with SZA ,  Major Lazer and Anitta's Make It Hot , Mabel's Take It Home and Jackson Wang and Internet Money's Drive You Home.  In August she launched her own singing career with the single Ease My Mind (Come Over), which combines R'n'B and drill music . It was followed by Finesse in October. She is due to release a debut project this autumn. On Call is Nija's 3rd single which came out on 12th November. This is the offiicial visualizer (or visualiser!). Update 23/12/21: There is now a music video for On Call:     For more from Nija, follow her at these l

Back in August, I wrote a post called Samples and Covers which featured original songs that had been sampled and the new/cover versions. You can read that here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/08/samples-and-covers.html Today I'm featuring a few artists who recorded the same song, or at least a very similar version. Rather than covers of older and/or well-known songs, these singers (and one group!) released the songs around the same time, covering different markets.    Mila Mila from the Tollywood film Super/by Tata Young First up is Mila Mila, a song from the Tollywood (Indian Telugu language) film Super, which was released in July 2005. The playback singer is Anushka Manchanda (who is also an actress and has sung for Bollywood and Kollywood films too). Thai singer Tata Young also recorded a mostly English version of Mila Mila which featured on her 2006 album Temperature Rising. I featured them both in a Weekly Music Video post back in 2013: https://starsparklex.blogspot.c

This week's video is Highway by NOA. His full name is Kazama Noa (or Noa Kazama in Western terms) and he is a Japanese singer and songwriter who is trilingual  (in addition to Japanese, he speaks English and Korean). Aged 12, he was scouted by South Korean record company YG Entertainment and became their first ever Japanese trainee.  NOA made his debut with the release of digital single LIGHTS UP in January 2020. In June he brought out his 2nd digital single TAXI featuring Japanese record producer and DJ tofubeats , which was No. 1 on the Spotify viral chart in Thailand. This January he released his debut EP Too Young. His other singles include Don't Waste My Time and LET GO which features JEON WOONG of Korean group AB6IX . Highway is NOA's 3rd digital single and is Japanese language with some English lyrics. It came out on 10th October.  Find the lyrics and an English translation here: https://www.lyrical-nonsense.com/global/lyrics/noamusic/highway/   For more on NOA visit

In September I did a world dance post focusing on African dance. One of the categories I featured was Ethiopian dance. You can see that post here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/09/world-dance-african.html At the time I came across a couple of Ethiopian and Eritrean music videos. I thought it would be cool to share some music from those countries today. :)  Note: If you're unsure where it is, Eritrea is a country in East Africa and borders Ethiopia. Both countries are in a region called the Horn of Africa .   Yared Negu and Millen Hailu- BIRA-BIRO  First up is BIRA BIRO by Ethiopian singer Yared Negu and Eritrean singer Millen Hailu, which was released in June. I believe they are singing in Amharic and Birobiro means "Butterfly " in English.  Apologies if I'm wrong. Please let me know if you can translate the lyrics. :)     Follow Yared and Millen at the links below: Yared's official FB fan page: https://www.facebook.com/yarednegufan Official Instagram:

Today's video is One of Dem Nights by Moneybagg Yo and featuring Jhené Aiko . Moneybagg Yo (real name DeMario DeWayne White Jr) is an American rapper who started out releasing mixtapes in 2012 ( From da Block 2 Da Booth in April and October 20th in October).   In November 2018 he released his debut studio album Reset. To date he has brought out 3 more albums- 43va Heartless (2019), Time Served (2020), and A Gangsta's Pain (released this April). A deluxe version of his latest album called A Gangsta's Pain: Reloaded, just came out on 22nd October. His singles include Dior featuring Gunna , All Dat with his ex-girlfriend Megan Thee Stallion , Wockesha, Scorpio, One of Dem Nights and Switches & Dracs with Lil Durk and EST Gee . For One of Dem Nights Moneybagg Yo teams up with singer Jhené. It's from his latest album A Gangsta's Pain/Reloaded and the video premiered in October.  Follow Moneybagg at these links: Official FB:  https://www.facebook.com/moneybaggyo I

When I did my K-pop Music and Dance Round-up post in September I mentioned that I was going to have a look for some J-pop in Public videos. If you don't know, K-pop in Public is the title of videos featuring dance covers of K-pop songs. If you search on YouTube, you can find many videos listed.  J-pop in Public (dancing to Japanese songs) does not appear to be as popular, but I found a few that I'm sharing today! :) (J-POP IN PUBLIC JAPAN) (Daichi Miura) FEVER Dance Cover by 2X2X First up is a dance cover of Daichi Miura's 2015 song FEVER by 2X2X. They are a 5 member boys dance group from Japan who perform J-pop and K-pop covers. The members are IORI, II, RYUKU, MASAHIRO and TAKERU. The boys are performing in Shibuya (a district in Tokyo) and the video was uploaded in August.  Note: Avex videos (or ones containing their music) are blocked from being shown on third party applications. If you click on the video, you can watch it fine on YouTube. :)   Watch the FEVER music

Today's video is Mi Amor by German born, Kosovo-Albanian singer Dhurata Dora and featuring Albanian rapper and singer Noizy . While the title is Spanish ("My Love" in English), it is an Albanian language song.  Mi Amor was released in July.     You can find an English translation of the lyrics here:  https://letras-lyrics.com.br/2021SS/08/S21/Mi-Amor-Dhurata-Dora-Noizy-Lyrics-English-Translation-en-US.html   For more music by Dhurata Dora visit these posts: Music video for Jake Jake : https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/08/weekly-music-video_21.html Also here is a direct link to the Jake Jake video, since the original was removed from YouTube: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6n8msw Harrom video: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/01/weekly-music-video_27.html     Find more Albanian music at the links below: Albanian Music feature: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2016/09/albanian-music.html Dy Zemra by Butrint Imeri and Nora Istrefi, plus links to more songs: