Karol G: From Subway Rides to Superstar Success

Karol G. Would have never been famous if she would have never gotten on the New York City subway. I’ve been on the subway many times. Still not famous or rich. I don’t know what’s happening. Back in 2006, when she was 14 years old, she auditioned for the Colombian version of The X Factor. Clearly, nothing happened with that. But as a person who wanted to be a singer, she didn’t give up. She was posting videos on YouTube, hoping to get discovered that way. She’s just like us. Like, we really all thought that we were gonna post a cover, become famous, viral like Justin Bieber, and call it a day. Delusion. And then over the years, she made and released music. However, nothing was really happening. She went to the university of Antioquia to study music, and she was even the backup singer for one of Colombia’s most successful artists at the time. Recon, fast forward to 2012. She came to Miami to meet with Universal Music, who rejected her, and they sent her on a wave of discouragement. But she still went back to Colombia, and she kept on performing, she kept on making music. She’s better than me. I would have called it an end. I would have been gone. But good thing she’s not me. Because she did gain some success. Was that in 2013, she did manage to get a collaboration with Nicki Minaj. But her career wasn’t going as fast as she hoped. It would. So in 2014, she moved to New York to live with her aunt. And then she studied English in New York, and she was like, I’m done with music. During this time, her dad was mad at her because she quit music. Her dad was like, can you, like, be a singer again? And she was like, no. However, everything changed one day when she was on the subway and she saw an ad for a music conference in Boston. She went to the conference, and then that day was the day that she became reinspired. So then she started making music again. And then in 2016, she signed with Universal Music Latino. She’s better than me, cause I would have been petty and I would have been like, hello? And then in 2,017, she got a big break. This song reached No. 10 on the Billboard charts. And then after that, it was hit after hit. Moral of the story is, if you want to be a singer, just go to the subway, I guess.