Singapore musicians are winning fans overseas. Why not at home?

Homegrown musicians are touring the US, featuring on global top song lists and drawing millions of streams online but somehow remain relatively unknown to mainstream listeners in Singapore.

When Regina Song went to bed after posting a video of herself singing live on TikTok, she didn't expect to wake up as a viral sensation. The clip had garnered about 200,000 views overnight and hit 1 million views by the end of the day.

Her 2024 clip introduced listeners to her catchy original song The Cutest Pair, which has since amassed more than 65 million streams on Spotify.

This growing popularity saw her become Spotify's most-streamed Singaporean artiste in 2024, and she now has more than 700,000 monthly listeners on the platform.

Over the last two years, the Singaporean singer-songwriter has toured Southeast Asia, accumulated more than 90 million Spotify streams across her music and became the only Singaporean nominated at the inaugural Music Awards Japan in 2025.

Despite her relative success in the region, the 22-year-old is not a household name like Stefanie Sun or JJ Lin.

In fact, she still receives messages from Singaporeans surprised to discover that she is local.

"I've seen comments from fellow locals saying: 'I just found out you're Singaporean, that's crazy'," said Song, who started recording and composing music when she was 16.

Singapore is home to other musicians who, like Song, have built substantial audiences overseas, but are receiving less recognition in their home base. 

While their reception at home is not necessarily poor, it varies across age groups and music communities. Song for instance has a loyal fan base among Gen Zs, though her name may be less familiar to older Singaporeans.

Overseas though, these artistes have attracted repeat crowds and found more regular performance opportunities in neighbouring markets or even toured extensively across North America and East Asia.

Others have found through their streaming and social media data that much of their fan base comes from outside Singapore.

Many said the enthusiasm, opportunities and recognition they receive overseas can be difficult to replicate here. Some also felt that local music continues to carry a stigma, with Singaporean artistes taken more seriously only after gaining recognition abroad.

SUCCESS BEYOND HOME

For some artistes, the first sign of a growing following came from hearing strangers sing their lyrics thousands of kilometres from home.

When Singapore emo band Forests played its first overseas show in Japan in 2016, there were only around 30 to 40 people in the room. 

While it was small audience, the atmosphere was electric. Fans were not only singing along to some of their older songs, but a few already knew the words to songs from the band’s newly released album.

"That alone made us think: 'No way, we just dropped our album and they already know the lines'," recalled the band, which formed in 2014.

Since its launch, the band has developed a "global cult following", as music platform Audiotree put it. It is also the only Asian band to feature in the New York pop culture magazine Vulture's list of the 100 greatest emo songs of all time.

Its overseas audience first grew through Bandcamp, a platform where independent artistes sell music directly to listeners. In 2018, a Bandcamp writer featured the band, introducing its music to a wider international audience and helping it gain new listeners.

In 2023, the trio embarked on a 17-city United States tour – a rare feat for a Singapore indie band. Their largest listener base is now in the US, with fans travelling to unlikely venues such as a Seattle church basement just to watch them perform, reflecting the strong following the band has built abroad.

Forests has also built a loyal following at home, although they are better known within Singapore's indie scene than among mainstream listeners.

Its members believe part of their appeal abroad lies in bringing an "Asian touch" to a genre largely associated with the US. From the outset, they were also deliberate about ensuring that their music, artwork and branding could stand alongside those of international acts.

"For me, I just wanted to be seen as a band – not a local or overseas band, but simply a band," 39-year-old frontman Darell Laser said.

Singer-songwriter YAØ has similarly built a sizeable audience outside Singapore, with more than 188,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and several of his tracks amassing millions of streams. 

Audience data he shared with CNA TODAY showed that the US was his largest market over the previous 30 days, followed by Indonesia and Taiwan. Singapore listeners ranked in ninth place.

When he first started making music, however, YAØ focused on gaining attention locally, seeing Singapore as the most realistic place to test whether he could build a career.

His outlook shifted after he released Hostage, one of the first songs he put out after leaving his record label, Universal Music, in 2023.

He posted an Instagram video explaining how he had made the song and the following day, he was getting likes from viewers not only from Singapore, but also the US, the Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere.

"That was when I knew the music could possibly go further than Singapore," said the 29-year-old. 

His music blends contemporary R&B and hip-hop with the upbeat, funk-inspired sound of 1980s Japanese city pop. When listeners are surprised to learn that he is Singaporean, he sees it less as a slight and more as evidence that they connected with the music without preconceptions about where it came from.

"It means they've judged my music on its own merits," he said.

BLIND FAITH AND 'DELUSION'

For all these artistes, their achievements rarely came from one big break and more often than not were the result of years of putting out work before they could gain any traction.

Since beginning her professional career in 2022, singer-songwriter Shazza has worked with Canadian pop duo Crash Adams, appeared in Coldplay's Man in the Moon music video, and was featured on a billboard in New York's Times Square as part of Spotify's Equal campaign, a global initiative spotlighting women in music.

The viral collaboration with Crash Adams in early 2024 dramatically expanded her international reach, with her social media following growing from about 2,000 to 90,000 in the span of a week after the video was viewed millions of times worldwide.

At home, she performed at the 2024 National Day Parade, sold out the 250-seat launch of her debut album, Chapter One, and later drew about 450 to 550 people to Shazzafest, a community event she organised around music, art and local businesses.

Her career however began far more modestly.

Shazza and her family self-funded and produced the music video for her debut single, Pity Party, themselves. She designed her press kits, wrote her press release and drove around Singapore with her father to deliver them.

"I really had to learn to become my own biggest fan," said the 24-year-old artiste.

She later signed with local label Cross Ratio and soon after, her first single Right Person, Wrong Time crossed one million streams.

What carried her through the uncertainty, she said, was "blind faith" and the fear that she might one day regret not giving music a proper shot.

Meanwhile, veteran rapper and producer Alyph described the same instinct more bluntly as "delusion".

After two decades, he has a strong following across Southeast Asia, with his most famous track, Swipe, amassing 10 million streams each on platforms Spotify and YouTube. The song has also been used as a soundtrack for over 1.6 million TikTok videos worldwide.

That trajectory was not one he had mapped out. When he started, he imagined that success might eventually take him to the US. Instead, years of making music led him through opportunities across the region, including a period based in Malaysia.

What he called "delusion" was the belief that the work would eventually find an audience, even when he could not predict where the next opportunity would come from.

FAMOUS AT HOME ONLY AFTER SUCCESS OVERSEAS

Across the board, experts and artistes agreed that Singapore's music ecosystem has come a long way, with more opportunities, visibility and support than in previous years.

Why then are some artistes finding more success overseas than on their home turf? Experts said that one reason is that Singapore music still lacks a clear, recognisable identity for audiences to rally around.

Shazza described the country’s mix of languages and cultural influences as both a strength and a source of uncertainty, while YAØ said artistes were still working out what a distinct "Singapore sound" might be.

Without that shared reference point, local music can struggle to build the same cultural presence as K-pop, Mandopop or other industries whose sound, language and identity are more immediately recognisable.

"To me, the question is: How do we honour the fact that we're from here without being limited by it?" said Shazza.

Other artistes raised the issues of the lack of opportunities in Singapore and the costs involved as other reasons for the difficulty of achieving a breakthrough in Singapore.

Veteran Malay singer-songwriter Imran Ajmain attributed the success of his ballad Seribu Tahun to being featured in a Malaysian television drama in 2006, a year after he released his first album in Singapore.

The exposure drew him towards Kuala Lumpur, the centre of the Malay entertainment industry, where he found the difference in opportunity to be stark.

In Singapore, I was so used to having two to three shows a year. In Malaysia, I could have two to three shows a week.

"In Singapore, I was so used to having two to three shows a year. In Malaysia, I could have two to three shows a week," he said.

The support was not only more frequent, but more visible. Imran said Singapore audiences tended to be polite and restrained, whereas meet-and-greet sessions in Malaysia could last longer than the performances themselves. The response often translated into spikes in his Spotify and YouTube figures after a show.

Some Singapore fans even travelled to Johor Bahru and stayed overnight for his ticketed shows, knowing he might not stage the same concert at home.

To Imran, Singapore's smaller Malay population did not fully explain the difference. There were enough Malay-speaking listeners here, he said, but fewer engagements, high production costs and a weaker ticket-buying culture made it harder to sustain a career.

A show that was viable across the Causeway could be far harder to mount in Singapore once venue, licensing and production costs were taken into account.

Other musicians described similar constraints.

Forests said Singapore’s fast pace, limited space and expensive rehearsal studios made it difficult for bands to practise and perform regularly.

"Singapore is really not a place that is built for playing music, to be honest," the band said.

Alyph, drawing on more than 20 years in the industry, said that Singaporeans might recognise talent but their music still had to compete with examinations, work and family responsibilities.

To someone already stretched for time, being told to "support local" could feel like one more demand.

"At the end of the day, I need to give people a reason to turn to me for entertainment," he said.

He also questioned whether Singaporeans' instinct to be systematic and realistic always served creative work, where the outcome could not be predicted or neatly quantified.

Dr Chew Yi Wei, senior lecturer at the Singapore University of Social Sciences likewise said artistic development in Singapore was often framed through outcomes such as audience numbers, economic value and international recognition.

While understandable in a small country, she said, this could leave less room for experimentation, failure and the slow process of developing an artistic voice.

She also observed that local artistes were often recognised more readily at home only after gaining traction overseas. In a market saturated with polished international content, success abroad could become a signal that a Singapore musician was worth noticing.

WHAT MORE CAN BE DONE

For Shazza, changing the perception that Singapore music is inferior begins with making it more visible.

She pointed to encouraging initiatives such as I Play SG Music, which brings local songs into MRT stations, Changi Airport and supermarkets.

"I don't think many Singaporeans wake up thinking: 'Today I'm going to search for local music'," she said. "Sometimes you have to introduce it to people."

Beyond visibility, the artistes suggested more concrete opportunities to develop their careers.

YAØ called for the return of local music awards such as the pre-pandemic *SCAPE Music Awards, as well as more mentorship schemes and opening slots for Singapore acts when international artistes perform here.

Song, the singer-songwriter, similarly felt the industry needed more opportunities to come together and discuss how artistes could be developed beyond their first few releases, particularly as many independent musicians still had to navigate management, marketing and industry relationships largely on their own.

For veteran singer-songwriter Imran, the more urgent gap is the lack of places to perform.

He said public entertainment licences, copyright permits and other requirements could be confusing or costly for first-time organisers leading to cafes and restaurants feeling discouraged from hosting live music.

Simplifying those processes, he argued, could give cafes, restaurants and new promoters more reason to stage shows – and musicians more places to build an audience before attempting a major concert.

He also urged musicians to work across Singapore’s separate language communities, whether by collaborating, recording versions of songs in other languages or entering neighbouring markets together.

"We should be interacting with each other's communities so that we can overlap and increase our discoverability."

The National Arts Council said its support includes grants, mentorship and career guidance, alongside platforms such as Esplanade's Baybeats festival and the SG Culture Pass to grow local audiences.

It added that regionally the AXEAN Music Showcase connects Singapore artistes with festivals, labels, booking agents and other industry partners.

For the artistes, the clear upside to having a strong following overseas is the opportunity to represent Singapore on a bigger stage.

"Even if our music and entertainment careers are regional, we can still carry the Singapore flag everywhere we go," Imran said.