First comment to first collab: starRo’s First on SoundCloud story

In 2016, Los Angeles-based artist starRo made history by becoming the first Asian electronic producer to ever be nominated for a Grammy. But before he was blazing trails, before the Recording Academy took notice of his heady, imaginative grooves known as “future R&B”, before he was starring in commercials for Beats by Dre and appearing on the talk show circuit in his native Japan, starRo, a.k.a. Shinya Mizoguchi, was searching for his breakthrough on SoundCloud.

At first, music was merely a dream, the passion project he pursued when he wasn’t working his day job at a tech company or driving for Uber. But after joining SoundCloud in 2009, the connections starRo began to make on the platform encouraged him to produce more tracks, post them more frequently, and engage with his increasing number of fans. Everything changed when the renown Los Angeles musical collective Soulection discovered one of starRo’s remixes and reposted it to their own SoundCloud page. That one share scored starRo more than 10,000 plays and exposed his creations to an entirely new audience.  

He only quit his day job two and a half years ago but starRo has already performed alongside GoldLink and Anderson.Paak, collaborated with artists like BOSCO and Jay Prince, and, oh yeah, snagged a historic Grammy nomination. Wherever starRo’s journey takes him, we’re proud of where it all started – first on SoundCloud.

Listen to the latest music from starRo on SoundCloud now.