Singer
Yuna paved the way for Asian talents to carve their place in the global music industry
Award-winning singer-songwriter Yuna is one of the first musical talents in the region to successfully break into the competitive US music industry and establish a career. She was the first Malaysian to be nominated for a BET Award for her breakout single Crush, and her album Chapters was one of the best R&B albums of 2016. With critically acclaimed albums and collaborations with heavyweights like Usher, Pharrell Williams and Jay Park under her belt, she is now grooming homegrown artists under her record label. October 2023 marked a special occasion for Yuna, as she finally held her highly anticipated homecoming concert, Yunaverse, at Sungei Wang’s Mega Star Arena.
Starting to write songs at age 14 and later teaching herself to play the guitar, Yuna began doing gigs in the local indie scene while she was studying law. She was already an award-winning artiste locally with her debut album but was later discovered and scouted by an indie-pop label through her Myspace page, where she had a substantial following and received more than one million plays.
In 2018, the songstress married Malaysian director Adam Sinclair, whom she met years before on the set of a television commercial.
“Change is coming, and people are excited about the Asian music scene right now—I want to be a part of that shift too.”
Recognitions
Awards
2015
Best Original Film Song for “Lautan” (Malaysian Film Festival)
2014
Best Music Video for “Falling” (Malaysian Music Awards)
2010
Best Song of the Year for “Dan Sebernarnya” (Malaysian Music Awards)
2010
New Artist of the Year for album Yuna (Malaysian Music Awards)
2008
Best Pop Vocalist for album Yuna (VMA Music Awards)
Did You Know?
Following in the footsteps of her father, a former state legal adviser and judicial commissioner in high court, Yuna left college with an honours degree in Legal Studies.