It has been a wild couple of years for Indonesian singer-songwriter Stephanie Poetri. From her second time performing at one of the most beloved music festivals in recent times to her own solo shows in Los Angeles, California, and New York in the United States, the 22-year-old is very much taking her time in the limelight.

“To be honest, I get really nervous when performing,” she said to The Jakarta Post during a Zoom call on June 2, dodging compliments left and right.

Stephanie was donning a comfortable, long-sleeved black tee when she got on the video call. Her two cats were running around and climbing up a small tree-like bunk bed. There was no hint that this was a Los Angeles-based singer speaking during a press junket. She was as casual and friendly as her video blogs showed her to be.

“[One of my cat’s names] Luka is taken from a movie because it’s cute, but I just realized that, huh, it does sound like luka [Indonesian for ‘scar’],” she laughed.

“But honestly, I was cutting his claws yesterday, and Luka unintentionally gave me an actual luka,” she said, showing the scar on her index finger. “So technically, the name fits!”

Navigating success

Despite (or perhaps along with) her cool-next-door-neighbor charm, Stephanie is actually a global artist; her most nonchalant single “I Love You 3000” — born out of an interaction with her Instagram followers in 2019 — has been a viral success, garnering over 400 million streams and charting on Spotify streaming platform for weeks. 

Stephanie has since been signed to the Asian-focused US record label 88rising, becoming a regular performer at the label’s most-awaited Head In The Clouds (HITC) music festival in Los Angeles.

“It’s really weird and cool, I feel very lucky,” she said. “I’m just really happy to be a part of such a cool collective.”

This year’s HITC, bearing her name again on the billboard, will be held in August. Aside from the soft, acoustic pop melodies she composed, one of Stephanie’s biggest selling points — which has managed to charm festival-goers time and again — is her voice. Fellow labelmates, like soloist and K-pop star eaJ, have heaped praise on her vocals.

“I think I just tried to make songs that are easy for me to sing,” she said. “And in a way, it’s actually a good thing because then it’s also easy for other people to sing.”

But Stephanie shared that she never took vocal lessons, which might surprise some given her musical background (her father is a music teacher and her mother, Titi DJ, is one of the biggest female pop stars in Indonesia).

“Mom was too nice to me ever since I was a kid. If I said ‘Uh, I don’t really enjoy it,’ she would say, ‘Okay, let's try something new,’” she said.

Love and fear

Stephanie’s love for writing is clear in her latest EP titled oh to be in love, with lyrics that anyone can relate to, such as long-distance relationships during the pandemic or loving someone despite their bad haircut.

“When I was in school, I used to like this senior, but when he cut his hair, that feeling went away. But I realized I really like someone when they cut their hair and I still think they look good,” she gushed.

However, the lovey-dovey atmosphere surrounding her EP does not linger in happy emotions. The penultimate track “Please Don’t Die Before I Do” sounds as heavy as its title suggests.

“I recently started developing this really weird thing where I would suddenly think, ‘Oh my god, what if something happens to this person?’ It would be 1 a.m. and I would wake up and gasp in fright. It’s very stressful,” she shared. “When [the person you love] dies, you don't know if you'll find somebody better, and that’s so scary to me.”

Part of the fear, she admitted, came from the endless worry during the COVID-19 outbreak. “During the pandemic, you think about all the things you took for granted, and I feel like for a lot of people, [one of those things] was seeing somebody super often or the ability to meet people so easily, and then now it’s really hard to meet people.”

Blossoming artist

Not only is this EP Stephanie’s most personal one yet, but it also has a more cohesive soundscape than her previous 2021 EP, AM:PM.

“When ‘I Love You 3000’ — my second ever song — did really well, people were excited to listen to other stuff I would put out, but I didn’t even know what kind of music I wanted to do, I didn't know who I was as an artist,” she confessed.

“It took me a while, but with this EP, I feel like that’s the kind of music I want to make for a while, and in a way, it’s similar to ‘I Love You 3000’ in that it’s super acoustic,” she shared. “So I think the next songs that I will put out are all going to be kind of like that.”

As time goes by, however, Stephanie has felt more distant from her most viral song. “I almost feel like I don't associate myself with ‘I Love You 3000’ as much as I should,” she said. 

She would, of course, be ecstatic whenever someone she idolizes covers her song, “I’d be like ‘Oh my god! They know this song!’ but I don’t know if they know me as an artist, if that makes sense.”

Perfecting your sound as a pop artist on a global stage can also feel intense for one of the few Indonesian singers in the Western music scene.

“There’s a little bit of pressure [to represent Indonesia well] but for some reason, knowing that there are people like [rapper Rich] Brian and [singer] NIKI who are doing such a great job kind of takes that burden away,” she said. 

“Because people look at them and feel really proud, and I feel that way, too, so hopefully, people feel that way about me, too,” she said. “I really like them, they’re really nice people and that makes me happy.”

Stephanie said she would usually meet the Indonesian 88rising artists — Brian, NIKI and rapper Warren Hue — at certain events, but she still could not hide her shyness.

“They’re like my school seniors, I’m a bit scared,” she laughed. “They’re honestly very nice, but it’s the same as when I first met [K-pop singer] Jackson [Wang], I got really shy because I’ve always been a fan of his. You never want to be, like, SKSD (Indonesian slang for acting like one is close with another person),” said the Jakartan-at-heart, who talked in English and Indonesian during the Zoom call.

And given her popularity for making a viral song out of Marvel’s famous movie quote, she also entertained the idea of making another one with the recent memorable saying from Marvel’s Doctor Strange movie, “I love you in every universe” — an idea that social media users have brought up.

“I think I want to do it for fun, but I always have this fear that people will find it exhaustive,” she chuckled. “But at the end of the day, I don’t take it too seriously, too, so maybe I’ll do something like posting it on TikTok or Instagram, we’ll see what people think!”

Popular

Democracy’s slippery slope

Thailand on top at SEA Games clouded by border conflict

Palm oil expansion in Papua raises eyebrow