Star Sparkle Blog

This week's video is 5AM by Kosovar (Kosovo Albanian) singer Era Istrefi and rapper Buta (real name Betim Januzaj, who is also from Kosovo. Buta is a well-known rapper who started releasing music in 2017 and has collaborated with several other rappers. He is known as the King of Albanian Trap . To date has released 5 EPs including Z. Ndjenja (2016), Dr Zhivago (2016) and his latest, Babayega' (2021), and two albums Pranvere/ Vere '17 (2017) which translates as "Spring/Summer" in English and Vjeshte/Dimer '18 (2018). Era (younger sister of Nora Istrefi ) is a popular singer whose career took off with the release of her 2015 single Bonbon. 5AM is the latest single for both Era and Buta, and was released on 10th November. It's an Albanian language song with the occasional English line.   For more music by Era visit these posts: Includes her hit single Bonbon: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2016/09/albanian-music.html The music video for last single TKRKT...

Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of the release of This is Me...Then, the 3rd studio album by Jennifer Lopez (one of my favourite singers). It came out on 25th November 2002. Can't believe it's been so long!  And Jennifer (also known by her nickname J.Lo) has just announced she will be releasing a new album called This Is Me... Now next year. It will be her first album since 2014's AKA (apart from the soundtrack to the recent film Marry Me ). This Is Me...Then includes songs such as the  lead single Jenny from the Block, which was a hit in many countries, All I Have featuring LL Cool J (one of my fave songs from the album) I'm Glad, Dear Ben (a tribute to actor to Ben Affleck who was Jennifer's boyfriend and later fiance at the time) and Baby, I Love U! In fact, the whole album was inspired by her relationship with Ben. It's strange to look back on it because she and Ben got back together and married this year, 20 years after they first got engaged! My t...

This week's video (or audio) is Middle Man by American singer Bazzi . It's from his latest album Infinite Dream, the follow up to his 2018 debut Cosmic. It was released on 16th September but I only just came across it on Spotify. 4 singles have been released from the album so far- I Like That, Will It Ever Feel The Same? and Heaven. Middle Man is my favourite song. I like its laidback vibes. :) To honest I haven't liked the singles as much, apart from I Like That. This is the official audio.   I also like dlma (which stands for Don't Leave Me Alone) with the band LANY . Future single maybe? Listen to that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRvsnkb7uBI Visit these links to listen to Infinite Dream:  Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/album/7CY2Iv5eX7eGAOdRNHfIBr YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10Jh7a7oFhY&list=OLAK5uy_kOBrhULrfP0-T6IP4mULE6ex0NVegr4Do   Bazzi fan? Check out these posts: Video for the 2017 single Mine (the song that launched hi...

American singer Ashanti (who has been called the Princess of Hip Hop and R'n'B) recently released a new single called Falling For You. I used to listen to her music back when she first debuted in 2002. It's hard to believe that it was 20 years ago now! To celebrate 20 years of Ashanti's career, here's a look back at some of her past hits. :) I've had to split this up into two parts, since it was turning into a really long post. So, this is Part 1. :) Ashanti (full name Ashanti Douglas; she is named after the Ashanti Empire in Ghana) started out performing locally as a teenager and was also a child/teen extra. She got her first record deal aged 14 but it was several years before her career took off. She was eventually noticed by Irv Gotti , the boss of Murder Inc. Records (also known as The Inc. at one time), which launched the career of one of my favourite rappers, Ja Rule . She signed to Murder Inc. and sang backing vocals for other artists before being fea...

Today's video is superficial energy by Denise Julia. Her real name is Julia Denise Lee and she is a 20- year-old Filipina R'n'B singer and songwriter. Her career took off when her single NVMD (pronounced "Never Mind") went viral on TikTok , after its release in February. Denise, whose other songs include Pity Ya and Nobody, is inspired by the 90s R'n'B she grew up listening to, as well as music from the early 2000s and modern R'n'B. She has been compared to American singer Ariana Grande . superficial energy (written in lower case) was released in September and the video premiered on 7th Sept. It's a chilled R'n'B song with late 90s/early 00s vibes.   For more on Julia visit these links:   NYLON Manila feature: https://nylonmanila.com/denise-julia-filipina-musician-nvmd-ariana-grande/ Bandwagon Asia interview: https://www.bandwagon.asia/articles/introducing-filipino-singer-songwriter-denise-julia-interview-nvmd-tiktok-release-music-vide...

It's been a while since I did a C-pop Saturday post (my last one was in the summer), so today I'm sharing another selection of Chinese music! :)   38- Flower by A-Lin First up is 38-Flower by Taiwanese singer A-Lin . Her real name is Lisang Pacidal Kouyan and she is an aboriginal singer of Amis descent. She started out in the music business in 2006, with her debut album Lovelorn, Not Guilty (English translation), released under Avex Taiwan. To date A-Lin has released 9 more albums, including Diva (2008), Happiness, And Then (2012), Guilt (2014), A-Lin (2017) and her latest LINK. She left Avex after several albums and signed to Sony Music in 2014. Her singles include Anti-Perfect, Passenger, I'm Not Sorry, Best Friend and 38-Flower.  Her music is a mixture of Mandopop (Mandarin language) and other genres such as rock and R'n'B. She has been compared to fellow Taiwanese aboriginal singer A-Mei . 38- Flower is from A-Lin's latest album LINK, which was relea...

Today's video is Baddie by Nigerian singer Yemi Alade . It's her latest single and came out on 28th October.  Baddie is an Afropop/Afrobeats song with some dancehall vibes. This is the official visualiser and it features the lyrics.  Update 6/12/22: There is now a music video for Baddie:    For more Yemi visit these links: Begging music video from this summer: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/08/weekly-music-video_10.html Video for Bubble It, her previous single featuring Jamaican singer Spice : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5mv9kFs_uc    African music fan? Check out my recent round-up post: Afropop Round-up 2021- 2022: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/10/afropop-round-up-2021-2022.html

It's been a while since I did a general dance videos post, so today I'm sharing some videos featuring dances from different genres, including Bollywood and Afropop. :)   [DANCE IN PUBLIC] XG- Tippy Toes- Dance Cover by Hustle  First up is a dance cover of Tippy Toes, the debut single by Japanese girl group XG ,  released in March. They are also considered a global group and their two singles so far have been in English, so that's why the video is listed as "Dance in Public" rather than J-pop in Public (although some videos are listed under J-pop). The cover is performed by Hustle, an all-girl dance crew from Melbourne, Australia that formed in 2015. They mostly do K-pop covers. The video was uploaded in July and the dancers are Natalie Lim, Kirstie Ho, Tran Le, Sarah Chua, Carmen Teoh, Nancy Sanjoto and Pearl Tasbur.     Watch the music video for Tippy Toes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bONJFH9A9A   For more on Hustle, visit these links:  Inst...

Today's video is Shut Down, the latest single by Korean girl group BLACKPINK . It's from their latest album BORN PINK which came out in September. Shut Down is sung in a mixture of Korean and English. It's the second single from the album, and both and single and album were released on 16th September.   Visit the official YouTube playlist to hear the rest of the songs from BORN PINK and watch previous music videos:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQlMMD8auMs&list=OLAK5uy_kg4p_YIox6P7lTzFXcr-4nnsanGQUNt74   BLACKPINK fan? Check out these posts:  2022 VMA Performances- BLACKPINK (features their performance of Pink Venom at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/09/2022-vma-performances-blackpink.html K-pop in Public Dances- BLACKPINK (features K-pop dance covers of Ready for Love, Pink Venom and Shut Down): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/10/k-pop-in-public-blackpink.html