Home-grown singer, songwriter, and producer Rangga Jones is the tenth guest in this music channel.

Synopsis (headphones recommended): Each month, The Straits Times invites music acts to its podcast studio.

In the 10th episode of Music Lab, ST's music correspondent Eddino Abdul Hadi hosts home-grown singer, songwriter, and producer Rangga Jones.

He might not be a household name in Singapore, but in recent years, the 27-year-old has been steadily building up a fanbase in the region with his R&B/pop songs.

On streaming services, the Singapore-based singer has racked up millions of plays, mostly from fans in the Philippines and Indonesia, where he was born. Call Me, a song first released in 2022, has 23 million streams on just Spotify alone. 

The song also caught the attention of Ruka, a member of South Korean girl group Babymonster, who added it to her public Apple Music playlist.

Jones, who started releasing music in 2019, dropped his first full-length album, Emotions, in late 2023. He has already started on new projects, and recently released his latest single, Pushing Me Away.

In this episode of Music Lab, he sang live renditions of Call Me as well as Not Good Enough, one of the songs off Emotions.

Highlights (click/tap above):

0:45 - On having K-pop star Ruka from Babymonster as a fan

4:19 - Turning his self-consciousness into a song 

7:41 - His transition from metalhead to pop singer

9:26 - Ed Sheeran inspired him to be a songwriter

13:01 - On becoming a full-time singer just before the pandemic hit

15:36 - He only learnt to speak English at eight years old

16:04 - On his international fanbase

18:51 - Fans recognise him at his part-time job at a cafe

19:43 - A recent break-up inspired his latest song

Watch the special live performance and video podcast version of this episode on the new Straits Times’ Podcast YouTube channel: https://str.sg/KRFD

Listen to Rangga's live performance of Call Me here: https://str.sg/GpM7

Listen to Rangga's live performance of not good enough here: https://str.sg/77tv

Discover home-grown artiste Rangga Jones at:

YouTube: https://str.sg/uqA8

Spotify: https://str.sg/LNPc

Instagram: https://str.sg/koXE

Produced by: Eddino Abdul Hadi (dinohadi@sph.com.sg), Ernest Luis, Eden Soh, Teo Tong Kai & Amirul Karim

Recorded by: ST Podcast Team

Edited by: Amirul Karim

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Website: http://str.sg/stpodcasts

Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg

Read Eddino Hadi's articles: https://str.sg/wFVa

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Special edition series:

True Crimes Of Asia (6 eps): https://str.sg/i44T

The Unsolved Mysteries of South-east Asia (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuZ2

Invisible Asia (9 eps): https://str.sg/wuZn

Stop Scams (10 eps): https://str.sg/wuZB

Singapore's War On Covid (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuJa

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