Yuna

Malaysian singer-songwriter Yuna, recognized for her polished adult alternative approach laced with jazz nuances and a soft vocal touch, first attracted attention via social media during the mid- and late 2000s. After issuing the breakthrough track “Deeper Conversation” in 2008, the song captured Best Song honors at Malaysia’s counterpart to the Grammy Awards. Building an audience abroad, she recorded with Pharrell Williams and appeared on the Lollapalooza bill in 2012. The single “Crush,” which paired her with American hitmaker Usher and appeared on her third album, Chapters, entered the U.S. R&B chart while reaching the summit of Malaysia’s singles chart in 2016. Subsequent work has kept sharpening her layered R&B and pop mixture, evident on the 2019 album Rouge, the 2021 single “Don’t Blame It on Love” with Pink Sweat$, and her fifth full-length, Y5, released in 2022. The EP Wasting Away surfaced in 2024.

Born Yunalis binti Mat Zara’ai in the town of Kedah, Yuna began writing songs at age 14. She soon picked up guitar on her own and delivered her first live set in 2006 while enrolled in law school. Posting material online quickly yielded more than one million streams and prompted a deal with the Fader label.

Supported by guitarist Pa’an, bassist Efry Arwis, and drummer Adib Azfar, she introduced herself on record in Malaysia through a self-titled EP in 2008. The release earned five Anugerah Industri Muzik nominations and four wins, including Best New Artist and Best Song for “Deeper Conversation.” The Decorate EP followed in 2010 and reached American listeners the next year, featuring the widely circulated track “Rocket” that drew praise from major U.S. music outlets and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. In 2011 MTV Iggy named her among the Best New Bands in the World, an honor she marked with a performance at the historic MTV Studios. She opened 2012 with the Pharrell Williams-produced single “Live Your Life” ahead of her self-titled debut album that April, which entered the Top 20 of the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Later that year she joined the Lollapalooza stage with Florence + the Machine, Jack White, and Childish Gambino. Her second album, Nocturnal, issued by Verve in 2013, returned her to the Heatseekers chart, and she performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2014.

Yuna reappeared in 2016 with the hit “Crush” featuring Usher. The song anchored the album Chapters, which climbed to number 16 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart later that year. In mid-2017 she performed another Chapters single, “Used to Love You,” on Late Night with Seth Meyers, filling in for Jhené Aiko, who appeared on the studio version. A series of singles, among them a standalone cover of Post Malone’s “Better Now,” arrived in 2018 and led to the July 2019 release of her fourth internationally distributed album, Rouge. Guest verses from Tyler, the Creator, Little Simz, and G-Eazy made it her most collaborative full-length to date and helped it reach number 18 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart. Additional non-album tracks followed, including 2020’s “Dance Like Nobody’s Watching” and 2021’s “Don’t Blame It on Love” featuring Pink Sweat$. In March 2022 she issued the EP Y1, spotlighting the single “Pantone 17 13 30,” the first of five EPs that preceded her fifth album, Y5. The sequence produced singles such as “Risk It All,” “Fool for You,” and “Enough.” Later EPs included Masih Yuna and Battle in 2023, with Wasting Away arriving in 2024. Also that year she released the standalone track “Watak Utama” featuring Bunga Citra Lestari.