SPOT LIGHT: Stevie Hoang
Have you ever herd of the RnB producer-artist Stevie Hoang? Well, this 24 year old East Londoner, is definitely someone you should keep your eyes on! He has already achieved 15.5 million plays on Myspace; 1.2 million YouTube views for the song “Addicted”; 65,000 albums sold in Japan; a Number One airplay single in Japan, All Night Long; in the UK, 3000 albums shifted, sold by the artist himself (literally). He has even had a international record deals before any UK label had a clue who he was!
Stevie has been labelled one of the hottest, most ambitious underground R&B star the UK has ever produced and, newly signed to Mercury in the UK, he’s about to go overground.
‘I was more into video games and kung-fu movies,’ recalls Stevie Hoang of his early passions. Born in Birmingham and growing up in east London, ‘music was more something on the side’. But when he was 11 his auntie bought his sister a keyboard. ‘I just started fiddling about with it. My parents saw that I was picking stuff up naturally, playing songs I heard on the TV and radio. So that’s when they bought me a bigger keyboard and made me take piano lessons. I kinda developed from there.’
He took an A-level in music technology at sixth form college and, in a year out prior to going to university, worked in the Funland arcade in the Trocadero centre in London’s West End. But in his spare time, he was busy crafting beats on a keyboard and computer set-up in his bedroom at his mum and dad’s house.
It was a productive time, but a frustrating one: none of the artists he was producing had a hit. He wasn’t making enough money to support himself, he was still living at home, and he was having to fend off the suggestions from his parents that Stevie should get a Proper Job. ‘I’d be like, “Mum, this next one, this is the big one, this is the one where I’m gonna get paid…”’
A low point came in Sainsbury’s, where he’d gone in search of a part-time job. They told him to come back in a few weeks. ‘That’s when I decided to change it up. My friends told me about Myspace, and I put a couple of my songs up there, with me singing, and a cover of Mario’s You Should Let Me Love You. And it just went nuts.’
In early 2008, still an unsigned artist and newly relocated to Braintree in Essex (his big sister lives there and ‘there were less distractions than in London – I could concentrate on my music’) he was contacted by a small, independent Japanese label. Would he like to put out an album in Japan?
In summer 2008 he released his debut album, This Is Me. His second Japanese album, “All Night Long”, followed “Quicksmart” in September 2009. His first visit, one month after the release of This Is Me, ‘was crazy. At that time I’d only performed once or twice in the UK, at Chinese events, and I went to doing crazy in-store events in Tokyo’s HMB, big clubs events and VIP parties. It was just mental. That was the first time I’d ever felt like a real artist and a star.’
In 2009 Stevie Hoang showed UK audiences what the Japanese already knew all about when he supported N-Dubz and Tinchy Stryder. ‘That took things to a whole new level for me here,’ he says. ‘It was mad – 3000 to 5000 people every night.’
Currently, Hoang is working on his debut British release. He’s re-tooling some of his Japanese tracks, working with Mark Taylor (Enrique Iglesias). He’s also been writing with Chipmunk collaborators Parker & James, and spent time in Los Angeles, writing new songs with RedOne (Lady GaGa, Little Boots), Dre & Vidal (Usher), Midi Mafia (50 Cent). He is also supporting JLS on their sold out tour!
Following a 12-month period when British ‘urban-pop’ has smashed into the commercial mainstream, say hello to a hugely exciting and genuinely unique addition to the homegrown scene, a British-Chinese producer beating the Americans at their own game!
Check out Stevie Hoang new video ”No Coming Back”
“No Coming Back” is out March 29th.
Click here for a free download of ‘No Coming Back”
