Scintillating Shirley

Society speaks to YouTube sensation, Songstress and performer Shirley Setia in an exclusive chat.

- Payal Mehta

She is the girl with a melodious voice and eyes glittering with big dreams; not to mention a smile that one just cannot stop admiring. Twenty one-year-old Indo-Kiwi singer, Shirley Setia, first made people go crazy when she posted a video of her singing on YouTube in her late teens. A casual participation in a singing contest on the video-sharing website instantly made her famous and catapulted her career into singing. Brought up in New Zealand, the effervescent entertainer, who was interning in marketing and publicity at the Auckland Council and part-timing as a radio jockey along with her studies and music videos (whoa!), has now shifted base to the city of dreams, Mumbai, to pursue her singing career fulltime. We grab the opportunity to know more about this rising star…

How did the musical bug bite you? Did you always dream of becoming a singer? 

I’m just a normal girl, trying to follow her dreams. Rather ‘The tiny one with not so tiny dreams.’ I started off with music in 2013, when my cover of Tum Hi Ho randomly became viral on YouTube. I had never expected that to happen, and it was only after that I realised that I should try to put more content out there. I would work on videos during the weekends and at night, after high school and university. I just graduated in BCom last year from the University of Auckland.

Tell us about the T-series competition on YouTube that earned you the title of Pyjama Popstar in your home country. How did it all happen? 

Ah, so my video for Tum Hi Ho was picked up as one of the winning entries by a contest that was held by T-series. I was in my pyjamas in the video; shot the video from my laptop’s in built webcam, hence the title Pyjama Popstar.