Rising Music Star: AZRA On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Music Industry
An Interview With Guernslye Honoré
Always find ways to help others and add value to others. Bring others up, then you will naturally surround yourself with people who also want to add value to your life.
As a part of our interview series with leaders, stars, and rising stars in the music industry, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing AZRA.
Pop-rock goddess AZRA is a South Korean-born, Bay area-raised, now multidisciplinary Los Angeles based independent artist making waves with more than just her music. As an accomplished author (The Cupcake Theory), motivational speaker, dancer, model, and musician, AZRA has effectively established herself as a formidable force in the entertainment industry with a promise that any artistic expression she shares with the world will have substance, depth, and purpose behind them to uplift others along their life’s journey. She shares her story through her signature Substance Pop sound — an entirely new genre of music that channels cathartic power pop, rock, dance, and metal influences with heavy 808 beats to electrify your entire body.
Keeping in line with the status quo has never been something of priority to the powerhouse songstress. Invigorated by an unshakeable boldness, empowering angst, and life-long affinity for performance, AZRA has learned the importance of never backing down regardless of what society deems acceptable. Channeling this philosophy into creating the 6th Dimension, a whole new world where you can live life to the fullest and be whoever you’ve always wanted to be, AZRA approaches every live performance with the goal of transporting her audience into the 6th Dimension along with her.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit about your “origin story”. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Thank you so much for having me. Yes, definitely.
I was born in Incheon, South Korea and moved to the States when I was 9 years old. As a kid growing up, I was always surrounded by music, performing arts and creative people. I remember my mom always humming music with her record player on and me hanging out next to her vinyl collection looking through records or sitting next to her during choir rehearsal. I started singing, dancing, public speaking, playing instruments and acting when I was 4-years old. I grew up in a catholic household, however, as an inquisitive, curious little rebel, I was always causing little tornadoes here and there and kind of living in my own little world.
When I was around 6 years old, I remember sitting in the front row of an outdoor concert in Seoul, Korea watching a K-pop group perform. I loved that they were positively connecting with people through their music performance and at that moment I knew I wanted to be on the other side of the rope singing and performing for people one day.
However, my path as an American artist was nothing ‘traditional.’ When I moved to the Bay Area (San Jose, CA), my only knowledge in English was half of the alphabet, which provided challenges as an AAPI immigrant wanting to do music in America. Though I’ve always sang, danced, acted, played instruments, and performed since I was young, immigrating to a new country required me to pause my creative passions to prioritize learning an entirely new language and assimilating to a new culture in order to survive.
As a young immigrant, I felt the pressure of getting into college, getting a stable job, and supporting my family, thus I did not have the luxury to freely pursue my musical dreams as other kids who were born here. Thanks to my unwavering will to keep doing what I love as an artist while striving to fulfill my immigrant expectations, I still joined every music, dance and performing arts group at school I could. I also formed 2 school bands (American and K-Pop), performed in musical theater, and convinced my school communications club to let me do the TV morning announcements with the teleprompter to aid me as my English was not good at that time. I eventually became fluent in English through music which contributed to me winning talent shows, modeling competitions, and receiving opportunities in the creative world. This was how I got through middle school, high school, even college.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
Ever since I was a kid, the one thing that was always clear to me that made me happy was singing, dancing, acting, performing and connecting with people. So I always knew that I wanted to be a singer and that I’d be on this career path. However, the way I got here was a different story filled with surprises, turns, hoops, swings, rolls, and whatever else life likes to throw at us, filled with lessons and growth. When I was in Korea, everything was pretty much smooth sailing in terms of being a communicative, creative, happy, emo, and troublemaker at times.. knowing the same language and culture as everyone else. However, when my family and I immigrated to California, everything changed. I had to learn a new language, new culture and make new friends all at once while continuing my education at a new “foreign” school in a completely new environment and country. While experiencing these changes and transformations, I still kept music and performance at the forefront of my life and livelihood. I formed 2 girl bands, a K-pop band with two of my very first Korean American friends I made in NorCal, and another band with friends I made in middle school of mixed races. I also threw myself into being part of the school’s orchestra, musical theater, dance, and even volunteered to do the morning announcements (even though my English was poor, thanks to the teachers for letting me go for it lol). So, as I continued through grade school, despite the move from Korea to the States, I kept on doing music, but I now had new and different expectations as an immigrant needing to “succeed in America” to do well and support the family.
For a little while as I was building and finding my roots here, I thought my dream of being a singer was just a hobby… Despite this thought and belief, I never stopped playing, performing music, joining bands and developing myself as an artist and a creative person… so I just continued on and eventually got into my first college of choice: Boston University, where I continued to perform and dance while keeping up with my business major. When I finally thought I’ve come to a place where I can look at pursuing my career as a singer, I moved to NYC for the summer of my sophomore year and joined a developing girl band. Then, life took another turn, this time with my health. I woke up one morning in NYC with half of my eye blind. I was diagnosed with a rare juvenile glaucoma on my right eye and had to stop all physical activity, fly back home to San Jose, CA to get surgery. For the next year and a half, I had to focus on healing, making weekly visits to the eye doctor. This was a very dark point of my life as I was constantly told that I may not see again, ever out of the right eye. So I had to build patience, resilience and learn coping mechanisms that did not destroy me. As dark and hard this period of my life was, I learned the greatest lessons coming out of this and thankfully, my eye eventually healed and I am able to see again with glasses out of my right eye :). After the eye, I went right back to singing, dancing and performing, however this time with an added mission behind my passions: to make sure that whatever I create has substance and to seek substance in things because there’s so much more to life than what meets the eye. Then along the way, I was scouted by a corporate management consulting company which helped hone in my business skills to finance my music, while also writing a book for youth and women around self worth and healthy relationships to add to my advocacy work which was inspired by my eye. I was eventually introduced back into the entertainment industry through modeling which helped me gain my confidence back after struggling with glaucoma for a long time. After all that… I eventually was able to get back to my passion in Music.
My glaucoma experience led me to create my own genre of music called Substance Pop, which is a mixture of pop/punk, rock/dance music with heavy 808 beats that make your heart and entire body pound, belting vocals, melodic melodies, catchy hooks with lyrics that are full of depth and substance. I invite my fans and listeners into the world I created called the “6th Dimension” which is a place, a mindset, and a shift in perspective where you can let go of all your inhibitions and unapologetically be yourself. I came up with the “6th Dimension” as a child in South Korea when I was often ridiculed by institutional figures such as teachers, nuns, and adults who said I was too “different” than my peers, that I was standing out too much, and that I should stop challenging the norm. They complained that I was not living in reality and was instead living in “yuek chawon” which translates into “6th Dimension”. This bothered me for a long time and made me think something was wrong with me. However, I never stopped being myself and instead of giving into these societal pressures to conform, I started embracing the 6th Dimension and made it my own little world where differences are celebrated, all things are possible, and began paving my own path towards my dreams. I share my experiences through my music to remind people that anything is possible, it’s okay to break societal norms to be themselves, and that their dreams are worth pursuing. I want to inspire courage in others to pursue their dreams unapologetically despite any challenging circumstances and to protect their voices. I want to amplify the voices and dreams of fellow misfits, the youthful souls, the underrepresented, misunderstood, and misrepresented in every part of the world ❤.
It was everything that I experienced from beginning until now that’s brought me here and shaped me into being the person and artist that I am now. As spiritual beings experiencing life in a human body, we are constantly striving towards something worthwhile and meaningful… It is the journey that makes all of our paths unique and for sure, my journey has been an adventurous one and we’ll see where else it goes ;).
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I feel like this career is nothing but interesting stories and there’s never a day that is the same as before. So I’ll share a recent interesting story. It was when my single “ALL OUT” debuted on the World Famous KROQ 106.7 FM radio and played for 10 weeks on their Locals Only show. In today’s world, with streaming being the main outlet for music consumption, getting on Radio has gotten even more competitive and rare. So the fact that my song was played on the radio station I listen to everyday in the car and I’m an independent artist… This was huge for me. Not just because of the song getting on radio, but this was also a sign from the universe that I am on the right track and that the hard work I’ve been putting in every single day is worth it. Since the debut, everything’s changed.
It has been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Funniest mistake…not sure it’s funny, I think it’s so ridiculous that it’s funny… When I was first starting, I fell into the “starving artist” myth that a serious artist can’t have a high paying job because it doesn’t allow for more flexibility with scheduling… So towards the beginning of my career, I purposefully left my six figure lucrative corporate job and tried for a very short time to work at a daycare assuming I would have more free time. However, it still took just as much time and energy from me as my corporate job! Thankfully, I came to my senses and realized that this starving artist notion was a horrible myth, was able to rectify the situation by taking on another lucrative day job, and was more grateful that I had a skillset and job that enabled me to finance and kick start my music career. The lesson I learned early on from this mistake was that there are so many myths that exist in the arts world that are distracting, detrimental and dissuading for artists starting out. That’s why it’s important to educate yourselves and follow your gut and know that as an artist you can pave your own path that works for you. If you have multiple skill sets and talents that can help kickstart your artistic career, utilize them to the fullest and be proud and excited that you have those other avenues to support you to do your music/passion while you are building. Do both until the scale tips and it eventually will ;).
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I agree. I’ve had so many people that helped me get to where I am now and I am so grateful for every single person who was there for me along the way. If I had to point out a particular person, it would be my family member AC. He’s been there for me since the beginning of my career and even before. I remember when I was recovering from my eye surgery, I was offered an opportunity to step back into the entertainment industry through entering a modeling competition. At the time, I had finally recovered from my eye surgery and was able to see again, however, due to the abrupt pause on everything I loved to do in order heal my eye in the past, my confidence was way low, but thanks to AC’s encouragement and belief in me and my dreams, I decided to accept the offer and eventually won the competition. Then a couple years later, when I finally had the courage to pursue music, it was also AC who was there as my constant, even now, through all the ups and downs.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I truly believe that, in life, us as humans are in this forever pursuit of meaning and fulfillment. The dreams we have since we were kids are meant to be celebrated, nourished, protected, tried and pursued.. However, preserving these childhood dreams are not easy due to external circumstances, people we encounter, hardships and lessons that alter and evolve our perspectives, the natural changes that happen with growing older, and really just life being life. With all this being just part of ‘life’ and ‘growing up’ I strongly believe that if we have a flame inside of us and that we want to dream or hope, we deserve to try it out with no limitations. So here’s a quote/mantra I created and like to live by as a reminder:
Follow your passion
Create your own show
The world is your stage
For anything you can imagine is possible
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I’m currently on my first headlining West Coast Tour!
We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in music, film, and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?
One: American ideals stand for a country of diversity, immigrants and multiple cultures and thus this country should represent that.
Two: For our children, our youth, our future. Every child growing up should be able to turn on their TV or phones to say “hey, that person looks like me and shares the same experience as I do, ok, so it’s possible for me too..”
Over the years, I’ve had so many Asian-American people and students come up to me at my shows and ask me how I am able to pursue music because they haven’t seen any other Asian-American artists until they saw me. I can totally relate to them because growing up, the only Asian faces I was able to find in music were K-pop artists overseas (this was before K-pop became global). However, as any minority in America knows, how people treat you in America is different from how they would treat you in a country where the majority of people look like you. Even now with K-pop in America, every AAPI would tell you that we can’t fully relate because we know they didn’t grow up facing everything we faced growing up in America, especially the inequities. It’s important to have representation of ethnically unambiguous AAPI talents in the music industry to empower our children and advocate for their futures. And I am sure this is relatable for other racial backgrounds as well.
Three: Progress and strengthen our United American culture — stronger representation of AAPI and all other races in music just like every other race and culture makes a stronger American culture overall.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why?
It’s normal to feel like you are wearing every hat in the beginning trying to learn, develop your craft while booking gigs and marketing yourself. All of this is necessary. You are doing the right thing and when the time is right, all of that will grow and evolve for you naturally.
- Everyone’s path is different and what you do is unique to you.
It’s so easy to start a new career and question whether or not you are doing the right thing. Seek guidance from people you trust, while trusting your process and unique path.
- Stick with people that want to see you win and vice versa.
Always find ways to help others and add value to others. Bring others up, then you will naturally surround yourself with people who also want to add value to your life.
- There’s no specific goal that defines your success. Progress is Success. Period.
There’s always the next thing, so don’t define your success by reaching a goal. The fact that you’re pursuing it is already winning.
- No one cares as much as you do about your career.
You don’t need managers or agents when you’re starting your career. You need to build yourself and give your all to your career before anyone wants to take a part in and of yours. Even when you do have a team, no one will care about your career as much as you do. So handle your business, stand up for yourself, and know your worth.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
- Trust the process, listen to your intuition
- Focus on your craft, live your truth
- Take breaks. Self care and doing nothing is productivity
- Have fun, be present, make memories
- Focus on how you can add value to others
- Focus on building your community
- Focus on yourself, the rest will be magnetized
- Stand by your principles, no matter the cost
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
- I would want to start a movement for every child to speak out their dreams and have someone in the world to help them fulfill it or encourage the child to try. The movement I created for this is called the “6th dimension.” I hope to be able to instill self-help, limitless mindset and confidence in every youth in our world.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
- Michelle Obama, because she is just an incredible, inspiring human being. We also share the same vision around youth and women empowerment and I love her perspectives around relationships, friendships and becoming!
How can our readers follow you online?
- You can follow me on Instagram and all other social media and streaming platforms. I have a private mailing list you can join for exclusive updates around my journey as an artist, new music, revelations, show info, etc. I also have a discord channel called T6D where my Azradeities can hang out and share ideas and conversations together. Join us ;)
Linktr.ee/AZRA
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Thank you very much for our conversation and welcome to the 6th Dimension!
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
About the interviewer: Guernslye Honoré, affectionately known as “Gee-Gee”, is an amalgamation of creativity, vision, and endless enthusiasm. She has elegantly twined the worlds of writing, acting, and digital marketing into an inspiring tapestry of achievement. As the creative genius at the heart of Esma Marketing & Publishing, she leads her team to unprecedented heights with her comprehensive understanding of the industry and her innate flair for innovation. Her boundless passion and sense of purpose radiate from every endeavor she undertakes, turning ideas into reality and creating a realm of infinite possibilities. A true dynamo, Gee-Gee’s name has become synonymous with inspirational leadership and the art of creating success.
