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“CARLY Rae Jepsen is an artist with the most catchy songs ever,” ChianoSky ( pictured) places her palm on the table for emphasis. “I Really Like You is my favourite song of hers. I even have Dub Smashes of it.” She reaches for her phone to show me. After unsuccessfully trying to teach me how to make my own videos on the App (I’m a Luddite, sorry), I realise, damn, ChianoSky is really young.

At just 22, the pop starlet has already released Hungry, a debut album that saw her work with British producer, Pete “Boxsta” Martin, share stages with the best in the country and this weekend, she will perform at the Pretoria leg of Jepsen’s tour which starts in Cape Town tonight.

ChianoSky has also reinvented herself with a new album, Inferno. After singing her heart out as a 19-year-old dark-haired former waitress on Hungry, she’s now a fiery red-head who coos lusty lines and oozes sex appeal. Basically, she’s like Jessica Rabbit with cute dimples instead of smouldering get-over-here eyes.

“I was younger and a lot more naïve on my first album,” she confesses. “I was experiencing a lot of emotions for the first time. Now at 22,” she says in a Marilyn Monroe-esque whisper, “I’d consider myself a woman. Inferno wasn’t exactly about what was happening in my life right now, but about the dreams I want to achieve and the romance I’m looking for.”

Produced by VAM, the same guys who worked on DA L.E.S’ song, PAID, Inferno is a meeting of syrupy-sweet pop and flirty disco. It is, after all, inspired by Donna Summer and Diana Ross. But ChianoSky calls this marriage of genres, cosmic pop. With uptempo songs like Dancing with VAMand Nothing Comes Free, the album’s common thread overpowers the listener as it sounds too era-specific at times.

But ChianoSky promises: “The next album is going to be completely different. This is just the diva I want to be in this moment. Where music is going, there’s so much room for originality. There’s no longer living you ca

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