Local singer Nathan Hartono has the looks, the voice... and Jay Chou as his mentor. Thanks to his highly-lauded performance on a Chinese singing competition, the 25-year-old may just become Singapore’s biggest singing export since Stefanie Sun.
He isn’t comfortable speaking in Mandarin, nor is he a fan of singing competitions. But local singer Nathan Hartono’s recent audition for popular reality TV show Sing! China (previously known as The Voice of China, the show changed its name due to copyright issues) was a star-making turn, to say the least. All four of the judges, Na Ying, Jay Chou, Harlem Yu and Wang Feng, lauded Nathan’s performance. (FYI: they now go down a slide after pressing a buzzer to show their approval instead of spinning their chairs around.) Especially enthusiastic was Na Ying, who asked if she could hug the “so handsome!” Nathan. The video of Nathan’s performance, where he sang ‘Have You Ever’ by Taiwanese crooner Wei Li An, has racked up over 600,000 views since it was uploaded on Facebook last week. Speaking to us over the phone, the giddy 25-year-old, who is of Indonesian - Chinese parentage, reveals that his Instagram following has spiked by more than 10K in the past week. “This is the biggest surge of attention I’ve received in a very long time,” says the former ACS boy, who’ll be jetting off to China next month to film the show. “I’m excited and curious as to what lies ahead.” So are we.
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