Teen singer set for takeoff
Niagara 14- year- old Christian Lalama getting noticed on YouTube and by entertainment industry
There’s the usual pressure of Grade 9 — exams, anxiety, etc. — and then there’s 14- year- old Christian Lalama’s version of Grade 9.
Homework followed by YouTube videos, where he has nearly 160,000 subscribers to keep entertained. There are shows to do in the U. S., TV interviews to do in Toronto. And is that Tiger Beat magazine on the phone?
Even for this chat, the St. Catharines student has stepped out of class for a bit. His teachers are probably used to it by now. Sometimes, the music biz and geometry class overlap.
“It gets really stressful, but I think it’s all worth it,” he says on a bustling Monday morning. “I don’t get too intimidated by it.”
On Friday, Lalama was a guest on Entertainment Tonight Canada. The 2016 video for his song Gimmie Gimmie has passed one million views. On Friday, he plays a show in Atlanta with the promotional group he’s part of, Rock Your Hair. U. S. media is starting to sniff around.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because this was virtually the same route to stardom Justin Bieber took a decade ago. From his voice to his look, it’s a comparison Lalama relishes.
“It’s very crazy to me, the fact I’m being compared to somebody like that, and the fact I could possibly be even close to as big as him … that’s just crazy for me,” he says.
A piano player since he was four, Lalama has plenty of musical pedigree. His grandfather was a sax player, his dad Paul is a member of local bands Jonesy and Up Yer Kilt, and his uncle Mark is one of the region’s most respected musicians (“He’s another big reason why I do music”).
When he was 10, Lalama won a Q107 radio contest to play keyboard for the Kid Mitchell Band. He recently won $ 20,000 in a Kellogg’s contest and briefly joined the Mini Pop Kids, performing family friendly versions of recent hits.
But it’s on YouTube he made his biggest impact, doing covers of hits including Die For You ( The Weeknd) and Lights Down Low ( MAX). The video for his own new song Helicopter has nearly 50,000 views in three days.
“When I get home I do homework, then focus on music,” he says. “Posting on Instagram, making a YouTube video … I devote a lot of time to this.”
After his social media following exploded last year, promoters and agents started contacting him. And fans. Lots of them.
( So many that Lalama’s publicist asks that his high school not be named because “it’s a safety concern at this point.”)
While he welcomes the attention, he still tries to hang out with friends like normal.
“They always say to me, ‘ I just can’t see you having a bunch of fans out there. You’re just, like, a friend to us.’ They don’t really understand it.
“I’ve always been able to keep the two separate. I’ve been able to sing and that stuff, and then hang out with my friends and have fun.”
For the moment, he’s concerned with growing his online audience and improving as a song writer. Everything else about the music business already feels second nature to him.
“It’s all supernatural.”