YH Buzz Meter: Kristinia DeBarge

Welcome to Young Hollywood. com. Hey, Young Hollywood. I'm Michelle Hanam. I'm here with Christiania De Barge. And we're here at the studio where she records. Now, can you tell us a little bit about your sound?

My sound is a mixture of Gwen Stefani with Mariah Carey, Beyonce, a little bit of Aaliyah, all mashed together.

Music has pretty much been very prevalent in your life. And you've probably learned a lot from your dad growing up.

My dad has been a big influence on me as well. My family, De Barge. Um, they all play musical instruments and they all sing and they all write their own music.

Do you remember the first time that you felt really drawn to music?

I was really drawn to music at 12 years old because I felt like that was the age where I could start taking it seriously. And my dad took me to the studio and we were in the studio until 4:00 in the morning and he was like, "Do you still want to be a singer?" And I was like, "Absolutely, let's keep going." He was telling me, "You know, I know you enjoy this and this is your hobby and you have a lot of fun, but it's not just fun. It's a lot of hard work. If you want to be successful, you have to have patience."

Let's talk about your single, "Goodbye." It's done amazingly well. Can you tell me a little bit about like, you know, where your inspiration for the song came from?

As soon as I heard the song, I thought, "Oh, how perfect." Like, every girl out there right now has gone through this, breakups and heartache. So I figured this would be a good song for women to listen to. I wanted to make sure that it was more upbeat, more fun, and it's more about the feeling and when and want it to be young, fun, and sexy.

You really love to have that women empowering message in your music.

I want to make sure that everyone feels that that they're getting some type of comfort and strength from this album.

You just got to do a music video for "Goodbye." What was that experience like for you?

I had a lot of fun and I got to try on tons of outfits and it was a total girl day. I had a lot of my friends there with me. So I felt like I had tons of support.

Were you able to be involved in working with the concept of the music video?

I had a group of about four people including the director, Ray Kay, um come meet, we just said, "You know what? We're just going to stick to this idea and if we happen to want to change something along the way, then that's what we'll do."

The internet, MySpace, Facebook is all so important. What do you love about having the online presence and how you get to interact with your fans?

On my MySpace, I have tons of voicemails and I'm actually planning on calling some people back, filming it and putting it up on my page and on YouTube.

How excited do you get when you find out how your song's doing on the charts?

It's really unbelievable because just the beginning of the year, I was still really trying to get a record deal. I mean, I just signed with Island two days before my 19th birthday and I had always told my mom and my family, "I want to get a record deal before I'm 16 or 18." And I got a record deal right before I turned 19.

So where do you see yourself as an artist or whatever it is that you have on your list of to do in a in about five years?

I'm kind of mysterious so like I like things to be surprised. But I definitely have a lot of things and a lot of ideas in store. I just know that I definitely want to give back and make sure that I'm involved with all of my fans and just grow as a person and as an artist.

Hey, Young Hollywood. It's Christiania De Barge here. Thanks for being awesome fans and take care.