Sriya Lenka, an 18-year-old girl from Odisha, has been chosen to become the first-ever K-pop artist from India. After a worldwide hunt, Sriya has been chosen to be a part of the Korean pop band Blackswan along with Brazil’s Gabriela Dalcin. The announcement was made by Blackswans’s label DR Music on Instagram.
Taking to Instagram, DR Music shared Sriya’s picture and wrote, “Sriya and Gabi were finally selected as members of blackswan after participating the global audition program for last 6 months. With their debut, we will be back with the new blackswan.” They also shared Sriya’s individual picture and wrote, “Introducing new trainees- Sriya Lenka.” Blackswan made its debut in 2020 and the group now consists of six members- Youngheun, Fatou, Judy, Leia, Sriya, and Gabi.
As per media reports, Sriya was born in Rourkela, Odisha in 2003 and is trained in Hindustani classical as well as Odissi and other forms of contemporary dance. She spoke about her training to a news portal previously and said, “Since I have a deep voice, I faced difficulty in finding the right vocal trainer. My grandmother helped me find one. She took me to a Hindustani classical music teacher, who taught me twice a week. But, for the western songs, I had to rely on online videos and self-learning.”
Sriya was selected last year among the finalists to train with the group in Seoul. The hunt for the fifth member was started after the group’s oldest member, Hyeme, quit in November 2020. The global hunt to replace her was started last year in May by DR Music who zeroed down on Sriya and Gabi from among 4,000 applicants. The group was supposed to pick only one member but decided to induct both the girls.
Gabi and Sriya will be in Seoul for the next few months for practice. In the last 5 months, the two have undergone intense training process for music and dance routine which included standard vocal, rap, and dance lessons to personal training, language, and musical instruments.
(Source: Instagram/ANI/The News Insight/Odisha Bytes)
