Daniela Andrade

“Such a big lens.”

Daniela Andrade laughs nervously at the Journal photographer hovering a few feet away from her. She sits on the floor of her manager’s condo, her back propped by a couch. The afternoon light streams through a window next to Andrade, illuminating the singer-songwriter and her acoustic guitar.

The photographer snaps away. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it,” Andrade, 21, says of the camera pointed at her.

You’d never know by watching any of her 160-plus videos — some of which she shoots from the exact same spot where she’s now sitting. Over the past five years, Andrade has become a rising YouTube star, a friendly, bespectacled girl with a soft, sweet voice and a penchant for singing covers — from Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean to The xx’s breathless Islands to folk songstress Lisa Hannigan’s Blurry.

More than 185,000 fans subscribe to Andrade’s channel, YouTube.com/danielasings, and her videos usually notch between tens of thousands and 500,000 views — including those of some of her own tunes, such as Don’t Care (314,000+), A Day With You (198,000+) and Something To Say (188,000+). Her most popular clip? A feathery acoustic rendition of Radiohead’s Creep, with more than two million views.

Andrade’s recent cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy might be heading for those numbers, too. Her stripped-down, jazzy version was the most blogged-about song in the world on Jan. 13, according to hypem.com, which tracks the popularity of online tunes. (More than 132,000 viewers have watched the video in 15 days.)

“I was so excited,” she says of the chart-topping spot. “The response has been really, really great. I couldn’t be more grateful. It’s a really good start to 2014. I just want to continue with that momentum.”

Her trajectory largely eschews the usual industry steps — playing hundreds of gigs, signing a record deal, getting radio play. But just like any old-school pop star, Andrade’s success hasn’t been overnight. She started her YouTube channel more than five years ago — Oct. 24, 2008 — with a cover of Say It’s Possible by Terra Naomi, who bills herself as YouTube’s first music star. Andrade says she decided to record the tune as a way of calming her nerves on the eve of an audition.

“The next day I was going to enter into this singing competition in Calgary,” she says. “It was a good experience, but I didn’t win. After that, I started to make a habit of posting videos on YouTube. I didn’t have any grand plans. I didn’t know what was going to happen; I just really liked singing since I was little.”

After graduating from Queen Elizabeth High School in 2011, she applied to the University of Alberta. She thought she wanted to be an English teacher — until she won $10,000 in an online competition, thanks to fan votes. For the contest, Andrade made a video about her musical inspiration — her father, Necthaly, a former choir director and guitarist who immigrated from Honduras to Canada in the ’80s. The two sing a Spanish version of ABBA’s Chiquitita in the clip.

“Until I saw the response (from voters), I didn’t realize what my music meant to people. I make music for me, but it’s the fans and supporters who keep you going. It warms my heart. So I thought, ‘You know what?’ If there are people who want to see me proceed and I’m really happy doing it, then why not?’ So far, I’m so happy. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

Andrade ended up using the money to record an EP of her own songs, Things We’ve Said (2012), with producer and YouTuber Jesse Barrera in San Diego, Calif. She’s now working on her next album of originals — inspired by “life, listening to new music, growing up a little” — which she hopes to record and release this year, preferably with the help of a label or a distributor.

What if fans don’t end up liking her songs as much as her covers? “I would understand,” she says. “Of course, I would want my own songs to be known first, but it’s thanks to covers that I am where I am today, so I’m very grateful.”

Those YouTube videos make Andrade some coin, though she won’t reveal how much. Is it enough to support herself? “Yes,” she says, though she also has a part-time job at Shaw Conference Centre. (No expensive cars, restaurant tabs or fancy trips like a certain YouTube-star-turned-worldwide phenomenon-turned-spoiled-brat.)

Andrade admits those YouTube videos also make her feel detached from the rest of Edmonton’s music scene. “I guess being at home on your laptop on YouTube does that, right?” she laughs. (Surprise, surprise — she met her manager, Jeff Kwok, on the site.) She wants to join a songwriting circle and meet other musicians. She hasn’t performed a lot — only a handful of gigs, plus getting the chance to play a song at last year’s Edmonton Folk Fest, as part of winning a local radio talent contest.

Andrade says she enjoys being onstage; a cross-Canada tour is in the works.

“It’s so thrilling to see people’s support and meet people because it’s just so different from YouTube comments and Facebook messages,” says Andrade. “It’s so awesome to put a face and a story behind each supporter, to find out who they are.”

Cover spin

Daniela Andrade tries to post a new video on YouTube every two to four weeks, often based on song suggestions from fans or her manager. “Sometimes, it’s just for fun, sometimes it’s because I particularly like the song and want to introduce people to my music through making my own style of the cover.”

Picking a global smash, such as Daft Punk’s Get Lucky, might guarantee YouTube views, but Andrade needs to feel like she can put her own spin on the song before she attempts it.

With Get Lucky, she teamed up with Tim Atlas, a YouTuber from California, to create an atmospheric duet in the vein of The xx. (The two shot their parts in their own cities, then her manager Jeff Kwok edited the footage together.)

Andrade doesn’t just cover the obvious hits. She also posts renditions of songs by some of her favourite artists, including Lisa Hannigan and pop-folk duo The Weepies. She just posted a cover of the latter’s Nobody Knows Me At All, performed with Gia Margaret, a YouTuber from Chicago.

Songs Andrade can’t seem to cover: No Doubt’s Don’t Speak and Foo Fighter’s Everlong.

You know you’ve made it on YouTube when other aspiring singers cover your songs. Dozens of YouTubers have performed Andrade’s own compositions — including a Polish duo, a drummer from Indonesia, and a smattering of ukulele players. “Sometimes they give it their own twist and I think, ‘I would’ve never thought my song could sound like that — you did a way better job than I did’.”

YouTube is usually a magnet for nasty comments, but Andrade finds the site to be a friendly environment. “It’s such a good community. We all talk to each other, collaborate with each other. It’s all good fun. Generally, I feel really safe on YouTube.”

Some YouTube users can make millions of dollars from ads — including the commercials inserted at the beginning of videos. Revenues depend on “the type of ads and the pricing of ads appearing with your videos,” according to YouTube.com. Some users say YouTube is reducing the amount of money they can make — “from an average of $9.35 (US) per 1,000 views in June of 2012 to $6.33 (US) in March of (2013),” according to a report in Bloomberg Businessweek.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal - Edmonton Journal

Edmonton-based singer-songwriter Daniela Andrade has developed a sizable online following for her stripped-down cover songs on YouTube. Her page has more than 180,000 subscribers and more than 15,000,000 views.

Her latest cover is a slightly dark, almost haunting version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." The originally upbeat song gets slowed down and deconstructed until you can't help but notice that the lyrics are actually fairly bleak.

posted by Chris Dart on Jan 15, 2014 - CBC Music

We have a YouTube star in our midst, Edmonton.

Twenty-year-old Daniela Andrade is a local musician who's played less than 10 shows in her lifetime, yet in the last few years has amassed more than 100,000 YouTube subscribers with more than 10 million video views.

The impressive social stats don't stop there. The indie pop, super sweet and folksy artist also has more than 30,000 Facebook fans and nearly 9,000 Twitter followers.

"It's crazy," Andrade says. "These last couple of years have been quite the adventure and it’s all because of them."

Andrade says her YouTube page is the star social network and has found a strategy for success: consistency and covers.

"Covers are a really good way to bridge people to my original music," she says.

"My growth has gotten better in the last couple of years because I’ve been covering more songs that people would know."

She takes advantage of those searches but hooks viewers with her distinct style that leads them to her soothing originals.


Thousands of YouTube comments suggest the same thing: Andrade’s voice is angelic, and each video she puts up is a success.

“While listening to you Daniela I found myself trying to put into words how your voice feels,” one fan recently wrote on one of her covers.

“It’s like every other sound in the world stops and I can hear every single word and every single sound you make.”


Andrade's impressive fan base has helped her win a few awards, including Who Inspires U? Video Contest ($10,000 prize), Hot 107 Hot Factor ($10,000 prize) and the recent Lite 95.7 Emerging Artist award ($10,000 prize as well as a performance at the Edmonton Folk Festival).

Most of her fans live around the world, so she's now hoping to build a local following.

Andrade is holding a show at the Yellowhead Brewery downtown on Aug. 14.

The independent artist, who released her first EP last May, is currently in the writing stages for her next album.

She hopes to be recording by Christmas and then go on tour.

Meanwhile, Andrade will continue to share her original music and covers on YouTube, and connect with her fans through social media.

"I constantly tell them they’ve changed my life and I can’t take that for granted," Andrade says.

To get tickets to her Aug. 14 show, head to www.danielaandrade.ticketleap.com.

Follow Andrade on Twitter @danielasings, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DanielaAndradeMusic, and be sure to subscribe to her on YouTube at www.youtube.com/danielasings for original songs that are simply soothing, and unique covers of popular tracks.

 Andrade is a star and Edmontonians should embrace her and be proud that this young musician, bursting with talent and beloved by so many around the world, calls our city home. - Edmonton Sun