Kat DeLuna is no glamour-puss. The rising pop star, who is one MTV’s top requested artists, still takes the PATH to New York, stops for coffee at Starbucks, and even finds the time to partake in such mundane tasks as organizing her closet.
And that is exactly what the 19-year-old singer was doing on a recent Monday evening, when she took a break for a phone interview.
“I’m having a girly day, an IKEA moment,” she said from her new uptown Hoboken apartment. DeLuna confessed that the new place has been barely lived in since she moved to Hoboken from Newark a little over six months ago.
“I’m never here,” said DeLuna, adding that she has been busy touring the country, promoting a debut album and a hit single.
That single, “Whine Up,” featuring Jamaican rapper Elephant Man, began to heat up the charts early this summer. An infectious chorus and dancehall-infused beat have helped the song become a full-fledged summer anthem, holding steady on the Billboard Top 50 for over 10 weeks.
DeLuna said she is determined to make that success last. “Once you have made it, it’s a challenge to keep your career [at the top] and not come down,” she said. “I prepared myself for this challenge. I know I’m not a one-hit wonder. I want to keep it this way for a while.”
A graduate of Arts High School in Newark, the young vocalist is also a trained opera singer who studied classical composition. She co-wrote all of the tracks on her debut album, 9 Lives, which dropped earlier last month and is enjoying equal success.
From the Bronx to the ‘Boken
DeLuna has been tuned to different types of music since she was a little girl, from salsa, to jazz, to rock, to reggae. The songs on 9 Lives meld the diverse sounds that she surrounded herself with growing up “You hear that because that’s what I am,” she said.
She lists Selena, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Luciano Pavarotti and Billie Holiday as artists who shaped her musical style.
Born in the Bronx, DeLuna spent her early childhood in her parents’ native Santo Domingo before moving to Newark at the age of nine. She penned her first song “Estoy triste” (I am sad) at around that time, when her parents were going through a divorce.
As an underclassman at the prestigious high school, she performed in a Latina R&B group called Coquette. She has never formally studied dance, though it is a major part of her performances. Her hit song “Whine up” has an accompanying dance with the same name.
Instead, she said, she just draws on her Dominican roots.
“When you’re a girl in the Dominican Republic people come up to you and say ‘girl come move your little hips,’” she said laughing.
She later won a karaoke contest that attracted industry attention and led to more gigs - including singing with Latin stars Millie Quezada and Marc Anthony.
Her hard work ethic was what finally got her a hit, she said.
“I didn’t have summers,” added the 19-year-old, who said she often fought the temptation to go out with her three sisters so she could work on her music.
“I knew one of these songs was going to get me there someday.”
DeLuna moved to Hoboken six months ago, but her busy schedule has left little time to prowl about the Mile Square City.
“It sucks, I haven’t been able to go into any of the boutiques,” said DeLuna, who lists Marc Jacobs as her favorite designer, and said she loves Cesar Paciotti shoes.
“I’m a shoe and purse fanatic,” she admitted.
DeLuna did add that she has found time to go to the AVEDA store on Washington Street, and often pops in to Starbucks before taking the PATH into the city.
But her newfound fame has made even taking the train complicated. She goes incognito, she said, but fans still recognize her.
“Since I have shades and a hat on, I say ‘no, I’m not Kat DeLuna,’ ” she confessed.
But then they’d point to her distinctive freckles, she said, and she couldn’t deny it.
Two stages
DeLuna’s fans have had ample opportunity to see her this summer. “Whine Up” was chosen as the summer theme for the New York Mets - written and recorded as “Rise Up” with David Brody, Executive Producer of Elvis Duran and the ZMorning Zoo on Z100 - and it is also WWE’s Summer Slam song.
The rising pop star performed on MTV, Regis and Kelly, the U.S. Open, and at the Miss Teen USA pageant. Later this month she will perform at the Latin Pride Awards on Telemundo.
DeLuna, who is of Dominican descent, said she learned Spanish as her first language. She sings in both English and Spanish with an impeccable accent, and three of the songs on her debut album were written and recorded in both languages.
“I do believe that being bilingual gives me an advantage,” she said. “That gives me two stages.”
“It’s two different worlds,” she continued. “The way we [Latinos] embrace music is different. An artist becomes like an idol. There are artists who haven’t sold an album in 10 years that still sell out concerts.”
She herself got to experience an idol-like moment earlier last month, when she performed at New York’s Dominican Festival and parade.
“You had to be there to see it,” she said, a sense of awe still lingering in her voice. “I felt like I was Shakira.” She said it was the first time that she literally was mobbed by fans.
“Do you know what it’s like to have 15,000 people screaming for you?” she asked.
That moment was worth all the summers and nights she sacrificed to work on her music, she said. “It takes devotion,” she said. “It’s like a hunger.”
She encouraged people with that same devotion and hunger to stick with it, and not be discouraged. “Why would you be able to dream if things aren’t possible?” she asked.
“If you fight and fight and fight, and work and work and work - you can make it possible.”
Source: The Hudson Reporter
