Budding home-grown singer Krysta Joy stumbled upon songwriting as a child. The 20-year-old composed her first song at the tender age of eight.
"It was actually a song for my mum, it was Mother's Day," she says in the latest episode of ST Sessions, now in its fourth season. The Straits Times' online video series features rising talents in Singapore's music scene.
"I forgot to write a card, so I thought, 'Okay, I don't have a card, I don't have a gift. What can I do?'"
The singer, whose real name is Krysta Joy D'Souza, but uses Krysta Joy as her stage name, had just picked up the guitar and knew how to play three chords, so she decided to come up with her own song as a Mother's Day gift.
And while the singer has been building her name in the music scene in the past year, that song is unlikely to be made public any time soon.
"It's pretty bad, I hope no one hears it, but that was my first song."
Inspired by genres such as R&B, gospel and folk, D'Souza came into the limelight when she won the Noise Singapore Award last year. The prize is given to mentees in the National Arts Council's Noise Singapore mentorship programmes for young creative talents.
"I'm honoured to have received the Noise grant and win the award and I'm working towards releasing a five-track EP, hopefully by next year," she says. "It's kind of like a journal of what I've been through in the past two to three years and I'm hoping to use that as a means to share my stories."
She is studying for a music degree at Lasalle College of the Arts and has performed at venues like the Esplanade as well as at events such as GastroBeats at The Promontory @ Marina Bay.
She is also one of the music acts performing at the upcoming Singapore Night Festival on Aug 25 at the festival village stage at SMU's Campus Green.
In the ST Sessions video, she is filmed playing an acoustic set at Artbox Singapore, a pop-up fair at Marina Bay earlier this year. There is also footage of her backstage, warming up before the show.
"I tend to do a lot of goofy stuff before a show. I'll do, like, some weird movements - I don't know, I'm strange. But I try and get out as much energy as I can first, so I'm not so nervous when I get onto the stage."
ST Sessions' fourth season is part of a series of digital video programmes produced in a partnership between the Info-communications Media Development Authority and Singapore Press Holdings.
Besides D'Souza, the season features seven other acts, including electronic music singer-songwriter Jasmine Sokko and pop singer Falling Feathers.
