It seems like it was only yesterday that we were first introduced to Yuna as a contestant in ‘One in a Million’. Even back in 2006, this Kedah-born lass’s singing prowess was set for stardom.
Despite not winning the competition, the songstress gained popularity for releasing original tunes on her Myspace account. This eventually gained her a recording deal with indie label, Fader Label in New York.
Thirteen years later, Yuna has firmly established her place in the international music scene. The songstress was recently featured on the famous billboard in Times Square, New York for the second time. Yup, you heard that right!
Spotify, the leading music streaming service, picked the singer’s album to be featured on its billboard. The advertisement promoted her latest album, ‘Rouge’ that was released last Friday.
An interview shoot for Billboard Magazine on her latest project, ‘Rouge’.
Source: Billboard
The songstress expressed her excitement and gratitude on Twitter- “From KL to the world. My new album #yunarouge is out today! Thanks @Spotify this is freakin awesome.”
Fellow Malaysians and ecstatic fans from all over the world flooded social media with congratulatory wishes to Yuna. The viral tweet has earned over 9.7k retweets and 15.9 likes, at the time of this article. Celebrities who came forth to wish her well include Rossa, Afghan Syahreza, and Sharifah Sofia.
Ecstatic fans and fellow Malaysians reacting to Yuna’s amazing feat.
Source: Instagram/Yuna
“There’s a song that I wrote (on Rouge) that’s called Pink Youth, and it’s all about girl power. So, that’s my version of Just A Girl.”
Her latest record, ‘Rouge’ represents a bolder version of the singer for her fourth international release with epic collaborations featuring the likes of G-Eazy and Jay Park. Yuna adds her own personal touch by going back to her roots with a Malay number, ‘Tiada Akhir’ as the closing track of the album.
The ‘Rouge’ star has also appeared on Spotify’s recent Instagram series highlighting the inspiration behind one of the songs from her new album.
Congratulations, Yuna on this amazing feat and the release of your latest album! We look forward to hearing it live this weekend at Good Vibes.
Also check out 10 things you may have not known about Yuna.
- Her actual name is Yunalis binti Mat Zara’ai. She hails from Kedah, popularly known as the ‘Rice-bowl of Malaysia’ located in the north-western corner of Peninsular Malaysia.
- Yuna started writing songs when she was 14 years old and performed publicly at the age of 19.
- After finishing high school, she followed in the footsteps of her father and graduated with a law degree from University Teknologi MARA in Shah Alam.
- She picked up playing the guitar as a creative outlet to deal with the rigours of law school.
- Her major break in the international scene was the album ‘Live Your Life’ produced by Grammy Award winning producer, Pharrell Williams in 2012.
- In 2016, she went on to duet with Usher for the song ‘Crush’. The song peaked at No. 3 on the US Adult R&B Billboard chart. ‘Crush’ was Yuna’s first Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified gold song with sales of 500,000 copies.
- US-based Huffington Post once listed Yuna as one of ‘Top 20 Artists To Listen To In 2014’, the only Malaysian artist on the list.
- Yuna was awarded the Most Successful Malaysian Singer by the Malaysian Book of Records.
- In 2017, she was the face of Uniqlo’s first hijab line in the United Kingdom and has firmly established herself as a role model for many young Muslim women (dubbed ‘hijabsters’ in a New York Times article).
- Yuna tied the knot with her sweetheart, Adam Sinclair in 2018 in a special ceremony in Puncak Rimba, Pahang witnessed by family and friends from Malaysia and the United States.
*Featured image sourced from Yuna’s twitter account – yunamusic.
