Artist to Watch: Charice

Urban Music Features

Artist to Watch: Charice

She has been called dubbed as “the most talented girl in the world” by one of the most powerful women in the world—Oprah Winfrey. To top it off, she’s only 18 years old. So who is this new sensation? Her name is Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco, or better known by her stage name, Charice, and she is also the first person of Asian decent to have a top 10 Billboard album.

Born in the Philippines to a single mother, she began competitively singing in over a hundred contests at the age of seven, in order to help out her family financially. After a stint on a reality show in the Philippines called Little Big Star, the equivalent to American Idol, Charice hit it big from her YouTube account.

Charice caught the attention of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who asked Charice to perform on The Ellen DeGeneres Show—and the young singer had never even been to the United States. After her performance on the show, she started gaining international acclaim.

In May 2008, Charice released her self-titled album, which went platinum in the Philippines. She went on to perform on The Oprah Winfrey Show and sang the popular Whitney Houston song “I Have Nothing.” Oprah personally called David Foster following the show to see how he could help Charice with her career in the states.

In a later performance with David Foster, Charice also caught the attention of legendary singer Andrea Bocelli, who was in the audience. Bocelli invited Charice to perform “The Prayer” with him at his birthday concert. Charice made her second appearance on The Oprah Winfrey show and Oprah referred to the young rising star as “The Most Talented Girl in the World.”

With her commercial success, Charice decided to relocate to the United States in 2009. She even got to participate in some of the inauguration concerts in Washington, D.C. Her second album My Inspiration was released in May in the Philippines and went gold within two months. Her first international single “Note to God” landed a No. 44 debut on the Billboard Hot 100.

Charice had a small role in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and in May 2010, her first international album was released, peaking at No 8 on the Billboard 200 chart. After many rumors, it was announced that Charice would join the cast of the hit FOX television show Glee as a foreign exchange student who lends some competition to the characters on the show.

With so much success at such a young age, Charice will for sure be an artist to reckon with in the upcoming years. As she continues to blossom as an award-winning singer, we’ll see if she’s up to the challenge to conquer acting as well.