Skylar Grey
Considering she won’t even allow pictures of herself onto the internet (“Need you my face if you’ve already found my soul embedded in my music?” she recently tweeted), chances of Skylar Grey turning into a fully-fledged pop superstar are probably quite slim. However, when I read her Wikipedia page I simply had to write something about her as this girl is seriously one to watch. Skylar (real name Holly Hafferman) wrote some of the best choruses to rap songs of the past year – Love The Way You Lie by Eminem/Rihanna, Dr Dre’s I Need A Doctor and the new track from P. Diddy’s new group Dirty Money, Coming Home. She provides the vocals on the chorus of Coming Home, but at the American Music Awards they were sung by Dirty Money members Dawn (ex-Danity Kane) and Kalenna, so once again Skylar was nowhere to be seen. Is she facially disfigured, fame-phobic or just a bit shy? I doubt we’ll find out anytime soon but the mystery is making me all the more excited about what she’s going to do next!
Hit potential: 65% Poptasticness: 74%
Rita Ora
It’s going to take me a while to stop thinking ‘isn’t that a soft drink from the 90s?’ every time Rita is mentioned, but I predict that we will all have forgotten there ever was a drink of a similar name by this time next year, when Rita has taken her rightful place as the new Rihanna. Rita was born in Kosovo, grew up in the UK, and now has gotten herself a deal with Roc Nation. An interesting fact about Rita is that she could well have ended up in the Sugababes – it was only when she pulled out of Eurovision: Your Country Needs You that Jade Ewen took her place in the contest! Rita is now working on her own debut album, stopping along the way to write a song for Gabriella Cilmi and appear in videos for Jay-Z and Drake. As Rita hasn’t released any music yet it’s hard to judge how she will do or how much I’ll like her, but she’s a gorgeous girl with a fun personality so I’m optimistic that she’s going to give us at least a few pop treasures.
Hit potential: 77% Poptasticness: 70%
I interviewed Alex Da Kid last week, who is mentoring Skylar, and she does indeed seem to be a mysterious figure. However, I think 2011 is the year we'll be seeing more of her.
I interviewed Alex Da Kid last week, who is mentoring Skylar, and she does indeed seem to be a mysterious figure. However, I think 2011 is the year we'll be seeing more of her.