Star Sparkle Blog

I've previously featured a couple of African girl groups on the blog, but not a boyband so far. A couple of months or so ago, I did a search online and found some. So today I'm featuring Dey Say, a boyband from South Africa! :) Dey Sey are the first South African boyband in two decades who have not been formed through a reality show. The group comes from Johannesburg and consists of 4 members aged between 16-21- J, Dre, Chad and Elim. Dey Say ( previously known as CLJ ) started out by posting videos on TikTok , their most popular being a cover of Cameroonian American singer Libianca's hit single People, which reached over 1 million views.  After South African TV presenter Leanne Manas heard their music, she conducted a live on-air search to find them, then invited them on her TV show Morning Live , which kickstarted their career. Following their appearance, the boys headed to the studio and began recording original music, which blends different genres, such as amapiano ...

This week's video is SMH by Joeboy and Tempoe . Joeboy (real name Joseph Akinwale Akinfenwa-Donus) is a Nigerian singer, who started working on music aged 18.  His career took off he after uploaded a cover of British singer Ed Sheeran's Shape of You to Instagram, which drew the attention of Nigerian singer Mr Eazi . He then became an emPawa 100 finalist (part of Mr Eazi's talent incubation initiative programme emPawa Africa , which was officially launched in 2019) the following year. In March 2019, Joeboy released the single Baby. It is one of his most successful singles to date, reaching the Top 10 in the Nigerian, Kenyan and Ugandan Apple Music Charts and over 20 million streams on YouTube and Spotify.  His follow-up track Beginning (released in August 2019) was also No. 1 on Apple Music in Nigeria and Uganda. He brought out his debut EP Love & Light in November 2019.  Joeboy released his debut studio album Somewhere Between Beauty & Magic in February 2021. He...

In the past few years, I've shared dance video posts from particular genres, such as K-pop in Public (dance covers of Korean songs performed in public), J-pop (Japanese pop) in Public and V-pop (Vietnamese pop) in Public . For today's post I'm featuring a variety of Dance in Public videos from different Asian music genres. :)  Dance in Public/T-pop in Public- Bad Girls Like You (Tobii) First up, some Thai pop! Last month I did a dance post sharing some dance covers of the popular single Bad Girls Like you by Swiss/Thai rapper Tobii . You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/01/dance-in-publict-pop-in-public-bad.html [POP IN PUBLIC LONDON] BINI- Salamin, Salamin (Dance Cover by CLIQUE) | United Kingdom Next is some P-pop (Pinoy/Filipino pop) in Public. This is a cover of Salamin, Salamin by Filipina girl group BINI , which was released in March 2024. It was the lead single from their debut EP Talaarawan, which also came out in March. The dance is by CLIQ...

This week's video is Bad Girls Like You (English version) by Swiss/Thai rapper and R'n'B singer Tobii and featuring Malaysian girl group DOLLA . Tobii's full name is Tobias and started recording music at 19, living between Thailand and Switzerland. He released the EP Midnight in summer 2020 and then his music career really took off in 2021, after the release of several successful songs such as Thinkin' Bout You, Question and Kwan rak mi ngay ("Love is not easy" in English) featuring hip hop artist Jigsaw Story .* Tobi then moved to Thailand and in 2023 was signed to Def Jam Thailand . He made his official debut with Def Jam at the festival Rolling Loud Thailand 2023.  Tobi's music is mostly Thai, with some English lyrics. His hit singles include Taew Nee Antarai (released in 2023) , Sexy Girl and Bad Girls Like You (both 2024). He also released the Christmas single X Mas Love in December.  The original version of Bad Girls Like You came out last Septe...

In the past couple of years I've written round-ups of live performances I've shared on the blog. You can see them at the links below:  Live Performances Round-up: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/03/live-performances-round-up.html Live Performances Round-up 2023:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/07/live-performances-round-up-2022-2023.html   Since we're now in 2025, I thought I'd share some more posts from the past couple of years, plus some new performances! :)   My 2023 live performances post, which features Filipina singer Denise Julia with bum 2 me , Singaporean singer Gen Neo's Losing Game Guitar Ver. and South African singer Tyla with Water:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/09/live-performances-2023.html My Afropop Round-up 2022-2023 post includes a live performance from Kenyan singer Karun. She sang her single Only You for music platform COLORSXSTUDIOS:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/11/afropop-round-up-2022-2023.html Eu...

Today's video is WhatsInIt4Me (What's In It 4 Me) by American singer Skylar Simone . It's her latest single and was released last November. WhatsInIt4Me is an upbeat R'n'B song. The chorus is inspired by Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey's 2003 single I Know What You Want (one of my Top 10 Mariah songs !). :) Please note that the song contains explicit lyrics. :)      

Time for the first C-pop Saturday post of the year! If you're new to the blog, it's my semi-regular series sharing Chinese music that I started back in 2018 . My last post was in September , so it's been a while!    WayV- FREQUENCY In December I shared the music videos for both the Korean and Chinese versions of FREQUENCY, the latest single by WayV , in my New Music Releases post. They are the Chinese sub-unit of Korean boyband NCT and sing in Chinese (Mandarin) and Korean. FREQUENCY is the title track from the group's 6th mini album, which was released last November. Watch the videos here (scroll down): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/12/new-music-releases.html   Ozone- Looking at the Crescent Moon/New Moon Dance Performance Video In my latest Asian Groups post, I featured the Taiwanese boyband Ozone (as well as Thai girl group 4EVE). One of the songs I shared is New Moon (or the Chinese title which is something like Looking at the Crescent Moon Together, whi...

This week's video is Call Of, the new single by Cape Verde born French singer Ronisia . It was released on 24th January.  Ronisia's most recent album is era 24, which came out in November 2023, but Call Of isn't on the album. It's a French language R'n'B song.     Ronisia fan? Check out this post: Music video for her 2023 single C'est toi: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/11/weekly-music-video_15.html  

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post sharing some new music for 2025. You can read it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/01/new-music-for-2025.html   Today I'm sharing some more new releases from various genres. Please note that some of the songs contain swearing/explicit lyrics. :) Sukriti and Prakriti Kakkar- Aa Zara Indian twin musical duo Sukriti and Prakriti Kakkar's new single Aa Zara (released on 24th January) was this week's Weekly Music Video. Watch it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/01/weekly-music-video_29.html   JoJo- Ready To Love American singer JoJo recently released the single Ready To Love. It's one of the latest singles from her new EP NGL, her 5th, following on 2021's trying not to think about it . The EP title stands for "Not Gonna Lie" and it came out on 24th January. NGL is mainly R'n'B and consists of 8 tracks including previous singles, lead single Porcelain, plus the "stripped down" version...