Tosh Zhang @ Tosh Rock - From Ah Boy to Man

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If you're a fan of Jack Neo's movie, then this is the one name that you should be familiar with. 

Rising young star - Tosh Zhang, or known as Tosh Rock on his youtube account participated in one of Jack Neo's movie series "Ah Boys To Men". This born & raise in Singapore chatty dude plays the role of Sergeant Ong in the movie, the instructor to other recruits throughout their National Service in Tekong Camp, Singapore. 

Before he joins Jack Neo's team in the movie, he himself was a former B-Boy and a YouTuber. His vlogs including "Body Odour Bastards", "Friend zoned", "Justin Bieber" are some of the popular or well known vlogs on YouTube. 

Tosh also joined local rapper - ShiGGa Shay in producing a music video called "Limpeh". The video was released a few months ago on YouTube and hits over 30k views. 

Limpeh (Official Video) - ShiGGa Shay ft. Tosh Rock

Saying himself that he is an "accidental actor", Tosh joined Jack's team in the movie series "Ah Boys To Men 1" & "Ah Boys To Men 2" and seems to be doing pretty well. His role as Sergeant Ong earn him not only some new roles in some other Jack Neo's movies (including the new movie "The Lion Men" & "Ah Boys To Men 3" which will start the filming soon), but also gain thousands and millions of fans from Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei & Indonesia. 

Thanks to this "accidental opportunity" as well, Tosh is now brothers with the others boys from the movie, including Joshua Tan, Wei Liang, Maxi Lim, Noah Yap and so on. 

Aside acting, Tosh also wrote and performed the theme song for the movie "Ah Boys To Men" - Recruit's Anthem. According to Tosh when he wrote the song:


"I spent two to three weeks writing the song and (Jack Neo) rejected it twice.

I wanted to make the song relatable to army recruits and my goal is to have them sing it (when they are in the army)."

The song was also played during the Passing Out parade in Singapore earlier this year. It was recorded and shared on Twitter by one of Tosh's follower who attended the parade.

Ah Boys To Men theme song - Recruit's Anthem

Subscribe to Tosh's official YouTube account, or follow him on Tosh's Twitter account / Tosh's Facebook page to know more about this sexy young dude. 

Oh, and don't forget Tosh's Instagram too =)

Peace v(^.^)

Clara Chung @ ClaraC - The Art in My Heart

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Clara Chung, or better known by her stage name Clara C is an American guitarist and singer. Clara is a youtube artist who rose to fame when she won LA's Kollaboration 10, KAC Media Juice Night and ISA 2009. 

Clara was born on October 31, 1987 to South Korean-born parents who currently reside in Northridge, California. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and a minor in Education in 2010. Although she is currently pursuing music full time, she also works and teaches children with autism part time. 

In a 2011 interview after the release of her first album, Clara said that she was first encouraged by her friends to post a video of her singing and playing her guitar on youtube. It turned out to be a good thing. Clara describes the music in her album "The Art in My Heart", as being diverse and "taking on a lot of different sounds". 

In 2010, Clara won the Kollaboration LA competition after writing a new song, "Offbeat", and performing it at the competition held at the University of South California. In April 2010, Clara worked with other popular artists such as rappers Dumbfoundead and Jay Park on the song "Clouds". 

In September 2010, she released her album "Art in My Heart" in conjunction with her music video for the lead single "Offbeat". The video for "Offbeat" was directed by viral video director Ross Ching and produced by Don Le. The concept for the video was Clara singing amongst inspiring visuals in a world filled with bubbles. In 2011, both Ross and Don followed up with a second music video "The Camel Song", featured Nigahiga as her love interest. 
On September 15, Clara released her 2nd album titled "ESC". 

My first ClaraC's video was her duet with David Choi "Darling It's You - ft. David Choi". Clara's hippy voice totally stunned me. I started to go through her videos on youtube and these are the originals and covers which are still playing in my mp3:

"Fish"

"Heartstrings"

"Offbeat"

"The Camel Song"

"Little Light" - ft. Sam Ock

"Rhythm of Love (Cover)" - ft. Joseph Vincent

"Clouds" - ft. Dumbfoundead & Jay Park

Subscribe to Clara's channel on youtube to watch more of her awesome covers and originals!

First album - The Art in My Heart

Second album - esc

Ryan Higa @ Nigahiga - The TEEHEE Comedian

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It's all about Higa this week! Let's start off with a little introduction about this youtube star. 

Ryan Higa (or better known by his youtube username Nigahiga) is a Japanese American youtube celebrity, actor, comedian, and producer. Since moving to Las Vegas to study filmmaking at UNLV, Higa's videos are either solo efforts or videos with other people such as KevJumba. As of Feb 2013, Higa's youtube channel has over 7 million subscribers. 
Ryan Higa was born in Hilo, Hawaii on June 6, 1990. He graduated from Waiakea High School in the year 2008. 

Higa first started to post youtube videos with Sean Fujiyoshi of themselves lip-synching to songs while they were still in high  school. Unfortunately, the account was suspended in 2009 due to copyright violations and all of their lip synching videos were removed. Since then, all the music that is played in his videos are composed by himself. The Nigahiga channel was created in 2006 by Ryan Higa himself, Sean Fujiyoshi, Tim Enos and Tarynn Nago (known collectively as "The Yabo Crew"). And in 2011, he created his second channel under the name of "HigaTV" where he posts video blogs and behind the scenes movies. 

I first came to know Higa through one of Kevin's music videos call "Shed A Tear". His facial expressions were so funny I couldn't stop laughing. That was when the search of Higa begun. After watching a few of his videos, I personally found that his videos are not only hilarious, but also rather bold. Bold as in the way he speaks and make fun of celebrities' issues in his vlogs. Here are some of the vlogs I find funny.

The Worst Boyfriend Ever

Censorship Makes No Sense

Why Selena Broke Up With Justin

Why Chris Brown Beat Rihanna

Expectations vs. Reality: Romance

Besides vlogs, Higa is also good in music and here are 2 of my favourite songs of his:

Nice Guys (ft. KevJumba, Chester See, Kina Grannis as herself & Cathy Nguyen as herself)

Bromance (ft. Chester See)

Oh, and one more video that I think that was the most creative video ever made. A Thank You video when his account reached 6 million subscribers -- Just Wanted To Say...

Subscribe to Ryan Higa's channel Nigahiga or HigaTV for more of his funny vlogs or behind the scenes bloopers!

FYI, Higa is also on twitter and Instagram! Go search! TEEHEE

Inch Chua - The Peace of Voice

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Thanks to one of the blogs in ISAtv, this week I was introduced to another new talented singer with incredible vocal -- Inch Chua. 

Let's start off with a little but something about Inch. 

Born in December 22, 1988, Inch is a Singaporean singer-songwriter, musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist currently based in LA, USA. She gained national recognition after being the first Singapore solo artist to be invited to the prestigious South b Southwest Music Festival. In 2010, she released an album "Wallflower". Her music is influenced by everything from early pop classics, oldies, jazz to alt-rock. 

When I first listened to "The Christmas", I was blown away by her strong and unique vocal. I had to put down what I was doing just to finish the video. Inch's vocal and David Choi's are perfect match. The song was beautifully sung and I couldn't stop repeating it for a few times. 

The Christmas Song - David Choi & Inch Chua

Then I looked up on Youtube for more of her others songs. These are some of my favourites :}

Wallflower - Inch Chua

Try A Little Harder - Inch Chua

Devotion In Reality - Inch Chua

The Last Waltz - Inch Chua

Inch has a magnetic voice and once she started to sing, I got hooked. Listening to her sing is very relaxing, especially during night time, when you can just sit back and indulge yourself into her beautiful voice. 

Subscribe to Inch Chua's channel on Youtube for more of her beautiful songs and covers. 

Kevin Wu @ KevJumba - The Comedian with A Heart

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Kevin Wu was born on June 12, 1990 in Houston, Texas and graduated from Clements High School in 2008. Kevin is best known by his youtube username of KevJumba. As of Dec 2011, he is youtube’s seventh most subscribed comedian and tenth most subscribed user overall. But there is someone who noted that Kevin is not a comedian in the conventional sense but that by “just talking is, well, pretty hilarious” due to his deadpan vocal delivery, animated facial expressions and tendency toward unexpected digressions. 

Kevin also has another youtube account going by the username JumbaFund, which donated all of its earnings to a charity that viewers suggested. Kevin donated over 5,000 dollars to a charity in Kenya, which later built a school after him, to build a new school in a span of 5 months from all of the profits he made through JumbaFund. He recently cited that he would now donate all earnings from this point on to Kenya in order to help finish and pay off the costs of the new secondary school being built there. In 2010, Kevin and his father competed as a team on the 17^th season of The Amazing Race, placing seventh out of eleven teams.

I was introduced to Kevin through one of Wong Fu Productions’ video call “Screen Test”. Same as Wesley, I was struck by his magnetic tone. I did a quick search on Kevin on youtube and found a lot of videos of his. Apparently he is rather popular. These are some of his vids that captured my attention:

My New Son Jeremy Lin (ft. Jeremy Lin & PapaJumba)

PSY Wants to Kill Me

I Have to Deal with Stereotypes

Drugs

I Love My Dad

Nice Guys

Kevin released a web series call Funemployed in Summer 2010, featuring Philip Wang of Wong Fu Productions, along with other youtube stars such as Nigahiga, David Choi, Kina Grannis and Chester See. With the large number of fans, the series quickly hit 500,000 viewers in just a few weeks. The series came to an end on July 2010, with the last episode “Gave it a Shot”. There were a total of 11 episodes and 30 sitcoms. It was fun to watch (watch it here!).

Kevin was also featured in some other vids and web series such as “When It Counts” Ep. 3 & 4 (Wong Fu Productions), music video “Dance To This Song” (David Choi), which apparently is the theme song for the mini-series Funemployed. Recently he released his own movie called “Hang Loose (Trailer)” which is now available on youtube as well.

Subscribe to KevJumba's channel on youtube, or to visit www.kevjumba.com for more of his funny vlogs.

Kina Grannis - Country Angel

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Kina Kasuya Grannis is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. She is half Japanese and half European American. Grannis grew up at California, and it was here where her love for music began. She started with piano and violin at first. By the age of 15, she started teaching herself the guitar and it was this instrument with which she fell in love.

In 2006, Grannis recorded and self-released 2 albums, “One more in the Attic” and “In Memory of the Singing Bridge”. In 2007, she recorded “Ours To Keep” and the song was featured regularly on General Hospital and was in an episode of a mini-series “Samurai Girl” in 2008. On November 2007, she created her youtube account and began posting videos of her songs online. Her first video “Message From Your Heart” was entered into Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest. She won the contest which landed her a contract with Interscope Record. On Jan 2009, Grannis announced that she was leaving Interscope Record to be an independent artist.

Stairwells was released on Feb 2010, and included many original songs already appearing on youtube. The album debuted at #139 on the Billboard 200, #5 on the Billboard Top Internet Albums chart and many more. On March 2010, her single “Valentine” was played on BBC Radio 2, the most popular radio station in the UK. The music video itself has been viewed over 13 million times on youtube.

My first time of Kina Grannis was through David Choi. Her duets with David “By My Side” & “My Time with You” caught my attention. Her vocal is rather soft country I must say and that was what attracted me the most. Plus a few days after, one of my friends shared the song “Valentine” on facebook, and I started to fell in love more with this talented angel.

Here are some of her best songs to share:

“Valentine” – Must watch! The music video is simply awesome!

“Stars Falling Down” – The song was featured in the mini web-series “When It Counts” in a remix version, released by Wong Fu productions recently.

“In Your Arms” – This song was played at wherever McDonalds and Starbucks I went to.

“Stay Just A Little” – One of my favourites. It was in my MP3’s replay mode for quite a while.

“Message From Your Heart” – Kina’s first video.

Kina was also featured in some of the mini web-series and short on youtube, as Judy in “Funemployed” and in “The Last” (ft. Harry Shum Jr.) both released by Wong Fu Productions in 2011 & 2012. And if you’re wondering what albums she has released in the past few years, here they are together with links to each songs on youtube.

Sincerely, Me (2005) – Try, People, Another Day

One More In the Attic (2006) – Living In Dreams, Running Away

Stairwells (2010) – Valentine, Stay Just A Little, Together, Mr. Sun, Stars Falling Down, The One You Say Goodnight To

Subscribe to Kina Grannis' channel on youtube, or follow her on Twitter. Stay Just A Little with Kina for more of her music and covers. 

David Choi - The First Blast of Freshness

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David Yong Choi is a Korean American musician and youtube video producer. He was born on March 22, 1986 to Ray Choi and Jane Choi. Obviously David got his talents from both parents. Ray plans auto-harp and Jane owns a music store calls “Grace Store”. David was surrounded by music growing up and does not think that he would have pursued music today without those influences. 

At a young age, David was required to play the piano and violin, an experience he didn't much enjoy it. Davis had not heard a pop song until he was in the sixth grade. Choi eventually ceased violin lessons in high school and commenced jazz piano lessons in ninth grade. It is at this time that David began to compose music, and he won his first award after submitting an instrumental pop song for a contest. As of now, he performs a mix of original songs and covers of pop hits. David worked as a songwriter and producer at Warner/Chappel Music, which signed him on after his participation in an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) workshop.

I first got in touch with David Choi after I watch the video “Lucky Guy” released by Wong Fu Productions. David’s husky voice attracted my attention. I started to search for some of his other songs. David’s songs gave me the first blast of freshness as they are so different than what I've been listening all this while.

Most of David’s songs are about love, relationships and break-ups. It was mentioned in Wiki that he describes his own music as “poppy with a hint of jazz and folk”. You might think that David’s a sad, solemn person with a poker face, but if you track his songs, you’ll find that most of his songs are often happy melodies. Take “When You’re Single” for instant, David put the song in a fun way and it makes me feel that “Hell, I'm dang proud to be single!”

Here are some of my favourites to share:

Missing Piece – Still my favourite. This song was in my replay list for almost one week.

Lucky Guy – I wasn’t that much in love with this song at first. But I think it just gets better and better after listening to it for a few times.

Something to Believe – A song which I find quite relaxing. I just discovered the song a few weeks ago and it is now the ringtone of my phone.

Darling It's You (ft. Clara.C) – Another of my favourites. I recommended the song to my sis, and now the song is in her playlist.

The Way You Are & My Time with You (ft. Kina Grannis) – Beautifully sung duets.

If you’re wondering what albums that David had released in the past few years, here they are for your reference.

Only You (2007 – 2008): Love, Won't Even Start, Something to Believe, Only You

By My Side (2009 – 2010): That Girl, By My Side, Better You

Forever and Ever (2011): Missing Piece, When You're Single, Lucky Guy, Forever and Ever, Thinking About You

Subscribe to David Choi's channel on youtube to get more of his songs and covers, or follow him on Twitter / Instagram to get to know a Better David. 

Wong Fu Productions @ Philip Wang, Wesley Chan & Ted Fu - Team Asians

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Let’s start off with a little history of Wong Fu Productions. It all started with Philip Wang when he was still in high-school. The name Wong Fu is a nickname that Philip was given when he was in the seventh grade. It was nothing big at first, until he met his classmates Wesley Chan and Ted Fu through a school production in 2004. The trio began working on small scale projects in their spare time and for class assignments. They did not originally consider film-making as a career when they entered university; Wesley explored an interest in animation, Fu had been a student in electrical engineering while Philip himself considered a career in economics. After graduation in 2006, the three moved to LA area and continued their venture under the professional name Sketchbook Media. And after 5 years of hard work, Wong Fu Production finally hit 1 million subscribers in 2011. 

How I got myself into Wong Fu Productions? This I have to relate back to Jin Lim. If you watch one of Jin’s video “Abuden”, there was a scene shot at Hitz.fm. The one who answered Jin’s call is Philip Wang, the other one with glasses who answered Jin with “No, this is Narnia” with a magnetic voice (well obviously he’s my favourite ) is Wesley Chan. I searched for Wesley at first, and then I was linked to Wong Fu Productions. So, because of Jin and Wesley, I gotta know this awesome group of film-makers.

My first view of Wong Fu Productions was the sketch “Hugger”, which I still find it funny till now. These are some my favourite funny sketches (watch it here): Real Friends, Buffet, Our Summer Flop, Hot Lava, The Screen Test

Besides sketches, Wong Fu Productions also came up with a lot of beautiful shorts which hit millions of views in a short time. Some of these shorts even made it into well-known international film awards such as Cannes Film Festival, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and San Diego Asian Film Festival. These are some of my all time favorites: Shell (Official Trailer for 2011 Seoul International Extreme-Short Image and Film Festival), Strangers again, These Four Walls, The Last (ft. Harry Shum Jr.)

If you’re looking for something more relaxing, there’s Wong Fu Weekends! Release on every weekends (Duh!), members of Wong Fu teach you their way of baking a cake, doing laundry, making gingerbread houses, cooking Ramen and some other daily routine staff (most of the time). Wong Fu Productions were also involved in some charity events such as The Supply Cup soccer game & ISA Charity Basketball Game.

They also released a new web series together with AT&T recently, called "When It Counts", starring Philip Wang himself, and other superb dancers like Yuri Tag, Mike Song and Anthony Lee. 

When It Counts Ep. 1

When It Counts Ep. 2

When It Counts Ep. 3

When It Counts Ep. 4 Finale

All of the vids featured are linked, so you may just click and watch some of their best vids recommended by me. Visit their official website http://wongfuproductions.com for more of them (Blogs, their own products: http://areyouaniceguy.com/) or follow them on twitter / facebook. Or even better, subscribe Wong Fu Productions channel on youtube to get more of their vids. 

Jin Lim @ Jinnyboy – The first

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Jim Lim, local Deejay of Hitz.fm who is also my first known youtuber introduced by my sister. Well, I’m not that old ya’know. I mean I know that there are some people posting beautiful shorts in youtube, just that I've never bother to go check it out till then. 

Okay, cut the crap and back to Jin. Let’s start off with a little introduction about Jin.

Jin Lim, or more popularly known as Jin from Hitz.fm, is the DJ who hosts the Hitz Party show, which airs every weeknight from 8 pm – 12 am. This multi-talented radio host / emcee / photographer discovered music at the tender age of 14. In high school, Jin performed lead vocals in a rock band he formed with mates, which went on to produce a hit single on hitz.fm, entitled Fever. Jin’s career in radio hosting took off when hitz.fm recruited him in 2008, co-hosting with Adam C at one point on the night show before taking it over solo. Being on air is a demanding job, but Jin works hard at what he believes is fun doing – sharing the latest music, being the voice behind the microphone, not to mention interviewing celebs which are the talk of the town!

I first knew Jin through a video he made call “Abuden”. I gotta admit it is the funniest video ever. The word “Abuden” means “Duh” in English. While you’re watching the video, you’ll find how people often ask questions (well more like repeating your actions in words) even they know or they see what you're doing at that time.

After this video, I searched for some other videos of Jin and found a few more. One of my favorite is “My Generasi”, a video dedicated to those who born in the 80’s & early 90's. This is exactly how my childhood was (see, I’m not old!). I shared this video to my friends in Facebook, and most of my friends re-shared it to their friends.

Then comes the short – “Unfold Part 1”. A common storyline; common as in it’s something that happens or happened to us or our friends around us. Something that you don’t aware of, Jin turned it into a beautiful short. Later on, Jin released “Unfold Part 2”, which of course in my youtube playlist as well and it was just as good as the first one.

There are also a few good ones which you can watch it here. Locals would easily get the meaning of those clips.

The Class Clown

101 Excuses

Only in Malaysia

Good job Jin, and keep it up. Subscribe or follow Jin on youtube, twitter or erm, tune into Hitz.fm if you wanna listen to his voice.