Lesly Daniela Andrade Rivera (born 15 August 1992) is a Honduran-

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

singer and songwriter. She started posting videos on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

of her covering songs from Beyonce,

Nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...

and

Edith Piaf Edith is a feminine given name derived from the Old English words ēad, meaning 'riches or blessed', and is in common usage in this form in English, German, many Scandinavian languages and Dutch. Its French form is Édith. Contractions and vari ...

in March 2008. She currently has a total of 1.99 million subscribers and over 300 million views on

. She also posts music on

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

and

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

. Andrade gained followers with songs like Coldplay's " The Scientist", and Frank Sinatra's "

Fly Me to the Moon "Fly Me to the Moon", originally titled "In Other Words", is a song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. The first recording of the song was made in 1954 by Kaye Ballard. Frank Sinatra's 1964 version was closely associated with the Apollo missions ...

" in 2009, she soon increased the frequency of the post, and eventually released an EP of original songs, ''The Things We've Said'', in 2012. She then released a collection ''Covers, Vol. 1'', as well as ''The Christmas EP''. Her low-key version of

Gnarls Barkley Gnarls Barkley are an American soul duo, composed of singer-songwriter CeeLo Green and producer Danger Mouse. They released their debut studio album, '' St. Elsewhere'', in 2006. It contained their hit single "Crazy", which peaked at number two ...

's "

Crazy Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or t ...

" went viral in 2014, as did her acoustic cover of Edith Piaf's "

La Vie en Rose "La Vie en rose" (; ) is the signature song of popular French singer Édith Piaf, written in 1945, popularized in 1946, and released as a single in 1947. The song became very popular in the US in 1950, when seven versions reached the ''Billboard ...

". Her music has also been featured in commercials and TV shows including ''

Supergirl Supergirl is the name of several fictional superheroines appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The original, current, and most well known Supergirl is Kara Zor-El, the cousin of superhero Superman. The character made her fir ...

'', '' Suits'', and ''

The Umbrella Academy ''The Umbrella Academy'' is an American comic book series created and written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá. The first six-issue limited series, '' The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite,'' was released by Dark Horse Comics betwee ...

''. She won the Vista Prize in 2015 and was nominated for the

Premios Juventud Premios Juventud (Youth Awards) is an awards show for Spanish-speaking celebrities in the areas of film, music, sports, fashion, and pop culture, presented by the television network Univision. Winners are determined by online vote at univision.com ...

in 2016 under the category favorite hit-maker. In 2020, she won the Hi-Fidelity Award from the

Prism Prize The Prism Prize is a national juried award recognizing the artistry of the modern music video in Canada."Daniela Andrade wins 2020 Prism Prize Hi-Fidelity Award for music video innovation"

Global News Global News is the news and current affairs division of the Canadian Global Television Network. The network is owned by Corus Entertainment, which oversees all of the network's national news programming as well as local news on its 21 owned-and ...

, July 23, 2020.

Personal life

Andrade was born in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, in a financially difficult household as the youngest of four siblings. Her father, Necthaly (Nick) Andrade, was a former choir director and guitarist who immigrated from

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

to Canada in 1987 and established a construction business in precast supply in 2003 in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, which is where Andrade grew up in her childhood. Andrade's family belonged to a

Seventh-day Adventist The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventism, Adventist Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the Names of the days of the week#Numbered days of the week, seventh day of the ...

church, and keeping with the faith's prohibition of dance and music except in praise and service to God, Andrade's mother controlled the music in the family's house, even disapproving of Andrade's father's favourite music in mariachi and balladeers like

Jose Luis Perales Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ''Yose'', which is etymologically linked to ''Yosef'' or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods. * Jose ben Abin * Jose ben Akabya *Jose the Galile ...

and

Julio Iglesias Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva (; born 23 September 1943) is a Spanish singer, songwriter and former professional footballer. Iglesias is recognized as the most commercially successful Spanish singer in the world and one of the top record ...

. Nevertheless, many of Andrade's siblings sang, her father played guitar and so did she at age 13 being taught chords by her father, and she enjoyed singing growing up being inspired by her father. She joined the praise team at her church and she had her first choir solo at age 6. Andrade would listen to bands online in her spare time like Metric and Linkin Park, and she also listened to Latina musicians like

Selena Selena Quintanilla Pérez (; April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995), known mononymously as Selena, was an American Tejano singer. Called the " Queen of Tejano music", her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mex ...

Shakira Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll ( , ; born 2 February 1977), professionally known by the mononym Shakira, is a Colombian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Barranquilla, she has been referred to as the " Queen of Latin Music" and is ...

and

Jennifer Lopez Jennifer Lynn Affleck (' Lopez; born July 24, 1969), also known as J.Lo, is an American singer, actress and dancer. In 1991, she began appearing as a Fly Girl dancer on the sketch comedy television series ''In Living Color'', where she rema ...

, which her parents did not always approve of. These early musical influences led to conflicted visions of her femininity and Latina heritage, where one path "promoted a sense of devotion to the church, to selflessness and to domesticity", while the other path was secular and involved "the dancing, the skin, the topic of being very open about your sexuality,

hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...

just seemed very far-fetched" to her. Andrade was first exposed to YouTube while learning from it to improve her guitar playing. She started her YouTube channel in high school in October 2008 with a video covering "Say It's Possible" by YouTuber and musician

Terra Naomi Terra Naomi is an indie folk singer-songwriter, who rose to fame through a performance of her song "Say It's Possible" on the video sharing site YouTube. Originally from New York State, but currently based in Los Angeles, she writes and performs ...

, as a way to calm herself before an audition the next day for a singing competition in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

, which she ultimately did not win; nevertheless she continued to post videos to YouTube of her playing covers around her family home. Andrade gained followers with songs like Coldplay's " The Scientist", and Frank Sinatra's "

", and in 2009, she increased the frequency of her posts and quickly grew in popularity. In 2011, she graduated from Queen Elizabeth High School in Edmonton, and thereafter, she applied to the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

to eventually be an English teacher. She abandoned applying to university after she won $10,000 in September 2011 due to overwhelming fan votes in an online competition about musical inspirations with a video of herself & her father covering ''

Chiquitita "Chiquitita" (a Spanish term of endearment for a woman meaning "little one") is a song recorded by Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released in January 1979 as the first single from the group's sixth album, '' Voulez-Vous'' (1979). Agnetha Fälts ...

'' by

ABBA ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's ...

, but in Spanish. Andrade used the money to record and release an EP of her own original songs, ''Things We've Said'', in 2012 with producer and YouTuber Jesse Barrera in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. She then released a collection ''Covers, Vol. 1'', as well as ''The Christmas EP''. Her low-key cover of

's "

" went viral in 2014 and was featured in the second season of the Netflix show '' Umbrella Academy''. Her acoustic cover of Edith Piaf's "

" also went viral. She moved to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

in December 2014, but then moved back to Montréal in the summer of 2015. Andrade intended to produce a music video for her single "Genesis" in Honduras, but due to ongoing civil unrest, she produced the video in one week in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, where emotionally-moving experiences reminded her of her mother and connected her more deeply to her Latin identity.

Discography

Albums

* ''Things We've Said'' (2012) * ''Covers, Vol.1'' (2013) * ''Tamale'' (2019)

EPs and singles

* ''Bright Blue'' (2011) * ''The Christmas EP'' (2013) * ''Latch'' (2014) * ''Crazy In Love'' (2014) * ''La Vie En Rose'' (2015) * ''Shore'' (2016) * ''Nothing Much Has Changed, I Don't Feel The Same'' (2020)

Music videos

*''Sound'' (2016) *''Shore'' (2016) *''Digital Age'' (2016) *''Come around (2016) *''Gallo Pinto'' (2019) *''Genesis'' (2019) *''Sometimes I Don't (2019)'' *''Polly Pocket'' (2020) *''Tamale'' (2020) *''puddles'' (2020) *''K. L. F. G.'' (2020) *''Nothing Much Has Changed, I Don't Feel The Same'' (2020)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andrade, Daniela Music YouTubers Canadian women singer-songwriters Canadian singer-songwriters Canadian people of Honduran descent Living people Canadian alternative rock musicians 1992 births Singers from Montreal 21st-century Canadian women singers 21st-century Canadian singer-songwriters