First fan to first festival: Lorine Chia’s First on SoundCloud story

R&B triple threat Lorine Chia wrote her first song in sixth grade. Born in Cameroon and raised throughout the United States, twelve-year-old Chia was preparing for yet another move, this time from Maryland to Ohio, and couldn’t face the prospect of leaving her friends behind. So, in a final bid to process her heartbreak, the precocious musician wrote a farewell song.

After teaching herself how to play guitar at fifteen, Chia began to write songs in earnest and SoundCloud became the nascent singer’s source of validation, inspiration, and community. After joining the platform in 2012, Chia would share rough drafts of tracks to her page, soliciting feedback from the SoundCloud community, shifting her direction or pursuing certain sounds depending on her followers’ response. Later that year, the singer uploaded her debut album, Lorine, quickly racking up over 100,000 plays on her collaboration with Chicago’s own Chance the Rapper.

Clearly Chia is on to something – her signature blend of jazz-tinged R&B and throaty blues has attracted the attention of artists like The Game, Jeezy, Janelle Monae, and Wiz Khalifa, and led to performances on massive stages like SXSW. Wherever Lorine Chia’s journey takes her, we’re proud of where it all started – first on SoundCloud.

Listen to the latest music from Lorine Chia on SoundCloud now.