Star Sparkle Blog

Last year I did a round-up of live performances on the blog. You can see that here:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/03/live-performances-round-up.html I've shared more live music since then, so I'm doing another round-up today. Here are the live music posts on Star Sparkle since March 2022, plus a couple of new videos! :) Post about Jennifer Lopez's documentary Halftime, which also features her and Shakira's 2020 Superbowl performance:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/06/new-jennifer-lopez-documentary.html Mabel performing Let Love Go and Overthinking from her latest album About Last Night... :  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/08/mabel-live-performances.html Korean girl group BLACKPINK performing Pink Venom at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards (1st of 2 posts):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/09/2022-vma-performances-blackpink.html My 2nd 2022 MTV VMAs post- Jack Harlow's performance of First Class feat. Fergie and Brazilian singer Anitta...

This week's video (or audio) is bum 2 me  (written in lower case) by Filipina singer Denise Julia . It was uploaded to YouTube in April but I only just came across it a couple of weeks or so ago.  Bum 2 me is a sultry R'n'B song (English language) in Denise's usual style and relaxing to listen to. :) Want more Denise? Check out these links:   Music video for superficial energy (2022):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/11/weekly-music-video_16.html Video for her recent single butterflies : https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/03/weekly-music-video_29.html Let Me with Korean-New Zealander singer Milky Day (released last month):  https://youtu.be/D36xdaTDAz4

This is the next instalment in my Asian Groups series, which shares music by East and South East Asian groups. Today's post is about ATLAS  from Thailand and GLAS from Indonesia. I've previously featured an Indonesian girl group on the blog ( V1RST ) but it's my first time featuring a Thai boy band! :) I came across both groups in this music video which features South East Asian pop groups:  https://youtu.be/y8trBoLYP8g ATLAS ATLAS is a 7-member T-pop   (Thai pop) boy group formed by XO Entertainment . Their name comes from the Greek God Atlas and the maps (world atlas). The members are leader Junior (real name Napat Osathai), Jet (Patpaiboon Opassuwan), Poom (Dechathorn Wanwanichkul), Nice (Vitchapol Somkid), Erwin (Supaklit Pennors), Muon (Nanon Nampeeti) and Tad (Thapana Chongkoirattnaporn. Erwin is Thai and French, and was born in Paris. The other members were born in Thailand.  ATLAS debuted on 7th December 2021 with the digital single MAYD...

Today's video is Ta Du by Kosovar (Kosovo Albanian) singer Era Istrefi . It's her latest single and came out last month.  Ta Du is an Albanian language song and the title translates as "I want" in English. It's more poppy than some of Era's previous releases.  Visit this link to to see an English translation of the lyrics:  https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ta-du-i-want-it.html Era fan? Check out this   post to   see the video for her last single Idiot (plus links   to more   videos) : https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/01/weekly-music-video_25.html

Back in 2019 I wrote a post called 6LACK Link-up featuring collaborations that American rapper and singer 6LACK had done with other artists. You can see that here:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/09/6lack-link-up.html For quite a while I've had the idea to do a similar post about American record producer and rapper Timbaland , so here it is! I've decided to make this a two-parter because it's turning into a long post, lol.  :)  Timbaland (real name Timothy Mosley) has had a long career, starting out as a producer in the early 90s. He had previously got into music as a teenager, working with rapper Magoo  and the production ensemble S.B.I., alongside his cousin Pharrell Williams * Timbaland's stage name comes from Timberland boots. Some of his earliest work was on the albums of R'n'B group Jodeci , and rapper (and his friend) Missy Elliott . He worked with Missy's girl group Sista, although the group never got off the ground and Missy went solo. He a...

Today's video is Perfume by NCT DOJAEJUNG . They are the 5th and newest sub-unit of Korean boy band NCT . The full group had 23 members at one time but currently consists of 20. The other 4 sub-units are NCT U , NCT 127 , NCT Dream  and WayV  (Chinese unit). Two more were supposed to debut (NCT Hollywood and NCT Tokyo) but there have been no further updates on them so far.  NCT DOJAEJUNG are more of an R'n'B group than the other units. There are 3 members- Doyoung (real name Kim Dong-young), Jaehyun (Jeong Jae-hyun/Yun-o) and Jungwoo (Kim Jung Woo). Their name comes from the main band name (NCT stands for "Neo Culture Technology") and the first initials of the members.*  The group was formed in early 2022 and made their official debut in April this year, with the release of their debut mini album Perfume and the title track. Perfume is an R'n'B electropop song about wanting to  leave your scent on a loved one  so you're not forgotten. Both album and si...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week, I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :) We're now getting into the swing of summer, so today I'm sharing some summer themed songs and videos! I've written several posts featuring songs for summer, most recently last year's Summer Vibes post. You can see that here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/07/summer-vibes.html Now here are some some more summer vibes! :) Note: I'm currently getting some slight interference/flickering when playing videos on the blog. I don't know whether it's just my device (I can only view it on my mobile phone right now), but they should be fine on YouTube itself. :) Ja Rule feat. Christina Milian - Between Me and You First up, some classic R'n'B/rap! Between Me and You by American rapper Ja Rule (one of my favourite rappers along with LL Cool J !) and Christina Milian  was released back in  June 2000. It was the first single from Ja's second album Rule 3.3...

This week's video is Habibi by Hazzar and Archer Dcosta. Archer is a record and music producer based in Mumbai, India, who creates jingles for TV adverts and trailers (including an Indian one for the revamped Supermarket Sweep !), music for film soundtracks and makes his own original music.  He also does remixes for other artists.  I can't find much info for the singer and rapper Hazzar, but I think his real name is Tausif Husain. Habibi is an Arabic phrase (a term of endearment) which translates as "beloved" , "darling" or "dear" in English. The song is a Hindi language one though. The female vocals are sung by Lynn D'souza. As well as Hazzar, the music video stars Moroccan/French model and TV star Soundous Moufakir , who belly dances (although it's more like a fusion dance, in my opinion). :) It was uploaded to Zee Music's official YouTube channel in May.  Follow Hazzar on Instagram:  https://instagram.com/taus1000sain And for more on...

I've previously written a couple of posts sharing J-pop in Public (dance covers of Japanese songs performed in public places) videos. You can see them at the links below:  J-pop in Public Dances:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/11/j-pop-in-public-dances.html More J-pop in Public Dances:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/10/more-j-pop-in-public-dances.html I did also do a post featuring dance covers of Japanese girl group XG's songs in March. They are sometimes listed as Dance in Public though, since their songs have been mostly in English so far. See it here:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/03/dance-in-public-xg.html I've featured K-pop in Public (Korean dance covers) more often because there are more of them. So I thought today it would be good to share some new J-pop in Public covers. :) [ J-POP IN PUBLIC TIMES SQUARE] STA YC - POPPY Dance Cover-   Harmonyc Movement First up is a dance cover of POPPY by STAYC . They are a Korean gi...