Francis Karel
From Omegle to Tik Tok, He’s Raising the Bar as a Rising Star!
By Taylor Marie Contarino
Photo Credit: Brittany O’Brien
Francis Karel, 23-year-old viral TikTok sensation, is an up-and-coming musician from Jakarta, Indonesia. Penning his first track at age twelve, Karel’s passion for music has allowed him to take a leap of faith and move across the globe to study at the Los Angeles College of Music in order to pursue his dreams. He continues to reside in sunny Southern California and is currently working on his debut studio recordings which listeners can’t wait to hear.
Taking to viral app Tik Tok to share his talent, Karel has seemingly earned himself a high-profiled fan base filled with stars such as Meghan Trainor, Zedd, Tori Kelly, and Bebe Rexha who all admire his unique talent and stardom, along with his unique musicality.
Accomplishing feats virtually unknown for an up-and-coming independent artist, Karel has already garnered an impressive 5+ million streams on Spotify, where his music, which features his authentic and wholesome musical abilities, is available for listening!
After sharing viral videos of himself performing for unsuspecting listeners on Omegle, Karel has matriculated a fan base of more than 2.2 million Tik Tok followers and counting. He released a lovable string of singles in 2021 and is excited to release his debut album in 2022.
The 23-year-old singer-songwriter has recently released “I Don’t Like How Much I Like You,” a testament to how he feels about catching feelings for someone new. In speaking on this track, he says “I’m not usually one to catch feelings for another, so it really catches me off guard when I end up feeling for someone. It puts me in a place of confusion & frustration, and although it can be a nice feeling, sometimes I wish I didn't have to feel any of it.”
I had the pleasure of speaking with this up-and-coming musical sensation about his hometown roots, how he came to find himself in the music industry, and what’s next for this rising star!
You are obviously an extremely talented and wholesome individual! How did it feel when you first began reaching your career milestones through the platform Tik Tok, and how does it feel now having such a large fanbase?
It really caught me off-guard and it was a change of perspective. Being into music, I've always wanted to somehow relay the music I make. At first, I thought that was as an artist, and then when I came to LA I experienced songwriting for others and that’s where I learned to value so much of what I love about music...so to suddenly go back to my original goal of being my own artist and have my own say with my own music was overwhelming. And to see how rapidly it grew on TikTok was just surreal. I kind of didn't realize how much it was going to change as things slowly started to open up more because my experience was during the pandemic and I did not really know how it would translate after lockdown once back to reality. Before it was more relaxed but now I see people and they recognize me at shows for example. All of those experiences made me realize that I am so much further than where I thought I would be.
Who do you consider to be your biggest inspiration and role model? Has this changed throughout your life or have you always had a consistent role model in the music industry?
One of my role models is for sure my mother. At a young age, she always taught me to work harder and work for what I wanted. She's someone who's also in the music industry back in Indonesia. We are in very different music scenes so we've never really worked together but I would always come to her every time I had questions, wanted guidance, or to ask about things I wanted to know more about. But the main thing is just how hard she works and how persistent she pursues something. That's for sure something I look up to because in the music industry, things don’t happen overnight and it takes time to build credibility and to get to that point that you want to get to at least based on my experience and what I've heard from other people.
How has TikTok been a game-changing platform for you personally?
I never expected to be able to reach as many people as I have on TikTok. I think the algorithm is very interesting; it changed my perspective on how social media can benefit an individual or an independent artist. Originally, I began posting on there just because I thought no one else would see it. I started my TikTok because I just wanted something to do during the pandemic with no expectations of it getting anywhere obviously because I had like no followers and I was just posting singing videos. So to see that it gives opportunities to people who don't have a following was really amazing and to think that I started about a year-and-a-half ago now from having no followers to where I'm at today is still crazy. Very grateful for the algorithm.
How and when did you come up with the Omegle idea as a way to spread your music and gain exposure?
It actually was right before Christmas last year and I saw comedic videos of Omegle showing up on my For You Page. And those videos brought back a memory of my middle school days and I was like “oh my gosh, my friends and I used to go on here!” I was kind of like “why don't I try to do a singing thing...I'm sure someone else has done it before but what can I do here.” So I correlated the Omegle situation to my music and just started posting. I had no intention or no thought process behind it but thought it was something fun to do and something new. To see that it became kind of part of my brand so quickly between Christmas and early 2021 was insane. I've never had that level of exposure on social media up to those Omegle videos so it was really out of the blue for me and has for sure help me like gain exposure as a musician / TikToker. It's still really weird that a lot of this is stuff I would never have thought would happen.
What do you hope to do next and what career move are you looking forward to making?
I'm looking forward to just releasing more music and continuing to write. Being an artist was something I've always wanted to do, but I also really value and genuinely love the art of songwriting so for the past 2 years I've just been writing as much as I can for myself and writing for other people. I want to continuously hone my craft from that angle as well as try to pitch songs for other artists. I think another thing I'm excited to do now, hopefully as things slowly start to open up more, is perform and continue to collaborate as well as push boundaries of what I can do in music. I feel like a lot of this is going to be me putting myself out there to see what there is to experience because that's what it was for me when I first got into songwriting. For example, people in the US collaboratively songwrite and that was a new thing for me. Back home in Indonesia, I was always songwriting by myself and it was not very collaborative at least at the time when I was interested in music during my middle school to high school years. The experience of songwriting with other people here in LA was something very new to me so similarly, I want to continue to collaborate, grow, and put myself out there.
What did the writing and producing journey look like for your newest single, "I Don't Like How Much I Like You?"
It honestly felt like a group of friends just hanging out. I wrote this song with Carlee Chappell, Chloe Copoloff, and Grant Boutin and those three are like my best friends and my favorite people to be around. We were all just kind of talking during the session and the song just kind of came together by itself because we were all in the same boat experiencing the same emotion and just feeling each other’s emotions. As far as the production journey, I'm so so happy with how it came together. Grant is one of the most insane producers I know and originally when we wrote this it was just the guitar sound and Grant was able to direct it to the way it sounds now. Then Dallas K, another insane producer who I am very grateful to have him hop on this track, helped furnish it even more. It is just kind of one of those songs that I was like “oh my gosh I can't believe this is my song and it sounds like this.” When I first started songwriting, everything was so stripped down with barebone chords on guitar and piano. Now I sit with so many producers, watch their process, and it's just so inspiring. I have dove into more producing throughout the years because of watching these people produce so well; it's just mind-blowing because they're able to soundscape so well and make a song feel so alive. Show that the production element is just as crucial as this song is.
Could you tell us a little more about how your journey began?
I grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia and I've always kind of been into music. As a kid, I was listening to whatever was playing on the radio so I grew up a lot on pop music. At a younger age, I was like “I want to release music, I want to sing a song” without actually knowing anything about what I really wanted to do. And in 2016, I had the opportunity to fly out to New York and work with people there. I've never ever written with anyone before...I was still fresh at the end of high school. I wrote with people there and I was like “wow this is really collaborative; this is so sick.” I always wrote by myself growing up and I didn't know that there was a collaborative aspect to it. I was like “what this is crazy...I had no idea.” For college, I decided I wanted to go to school in LA because I wanted to be able to see how the music industry was there because it's so different than Indonesia. Since I moved to the US, I've met so many people that I have learned from and so many people that I'm inspired by. I always thought that I would have to finish college and then figure everything else out afterward so to think that it happened in between that was surreal. And to think that TikTok played a huge role in that and that getting to know people was going to help me develop so much faster was really really really cool. I basically started with the idea and a dream and was just eager to know more about the music industry out here.
What has been your experience so far in LA, particularly at your music school?
During my time at music school, it was very different from what I thought music school was going to be. Growing up back home I only heard about classical music schools so I was surprised by how much the music school I went to was more focused on the music business and songwriting aspect of it which was more of what I was interested in. So I personally had a great time there. We had teachers and faculty who were experienced in the music industry. One of my songwriting teachers wrote for a bunch of people so to think that she was teaching us and she's written stuff for Jessie J, Flo Rida. and Britney Spears I was just kind of like “wow, what are you doing here.” Getting to have that one-on-one with these teachers and getting insight into their experience was super valuable. The one thing I wanted to know about was as a songwriter I wanted to learn the music business angle. So for me, it was very interesting to hear all these things from school and I personally valued a lot of one-on-one with the teacher because I was just curious to learn more about their experience and stuff that they have achieved but also the stuff that they realize they should have paid attention to before diving into the music industry. I'm hoping that I've learned enough to at least take care of myself but, you know, I feel like there's just something new every day that I have to learn. But yeah, my experience in LA...aside from the traffic and how far things are from each other, I love it here.
What do you find to be the most fulfilling part of your career?
How personal I get to be. I for sure don't consider myself someone who can easily relay what I think or how I feel and being able to do that through music is very very therapeutic for me. I also feel like it shows a side of me that is more vulnerable and honest. And I love that because it's nice to see how people are able to reciprocate and understand and to know that people go through the same things or have the same emotions. I'm really grateful for that because it kind of helps me out as well to know that someone else is able to understand and comprehend. It makes me think that I'm not weird for feeling or thinking a certain way. I'd have to say that the people that I meet through it are so fulfilling. I'm so grateful for the people who follow me but also the people that I have gotten to work with because of networking. It's just so nice because everybody's a great human being and I love getting to know everyone’s layers.
What or who made you want to get into music in the first place?
It for sure had to do with people I grew up with and my family members. My uncle growing up was in a band and then he did a solo thing for a bit and that inspired me...so shout out to my uncle! But yeah, he's one of the people from my core circle that inspired me. Also, I had a friend from primary school and he used to sing as a kid and I think still sings now...I really only remember him from primary. I went to a concert that had just a bunch of people performing and he was one of the prodigy kids who was singing and I was just like “oh my gosh this is so cool.” That moment got me into singing because I thought it was so sick. He was one of the most amazing voices I've heard and I was very inspired by him at a young age.