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In honor of AAPI month and our anniversary, we want to take a moment to celebrate the Asian American and Pacific Islander artists that shaped the earliest days of OnesToWatch. Their distinctive vision and sound not only skyrocketed them into the powerhouse artists they are today but also helped us produce articles, videos, interviews, and more that we still look fondly back at today. OnesToWatch would not be the same without them and we can’t wait to see what they still have in store in the years to come.     

Dominic Fike

Dominic Fike exists in the space where pop structure starts to fall apart, shaped by instinct as much as genre. Emerging with Don’t Forget About Me, Demos and the breakout “3 Nights,” he quickly positioned himself outside of clean categorization, folding rock, rap, and pop into a single, loose language. His debut What Could Possibly Go Wrong and 2023’s Sunburn further refined that understated approach. Alongside Euphoria, which expanded his cultural reach beyond music, he has recently been performing selectively, with his next chapter still unfolding outside the bounds of traditional album cycles.

Conan Gray

Conan Gray has always rooted his work in emotional precision, building it from the language of memory, longing, and adolescence. From Kid Krow’s breakout moment with “Heather” to the more expansive orchestration of Superache, his writing has remained diaristic even as his sound has grown larger. Found Heaven pushed him into retro-styled pop textures without losing that core intimacy. After a full touring cycle across multiple eras, he is currently in a transitional creative phase, operating between visibility and reinvention as he shapes his next direction.

BTS

BTS redefined the global scale of pop not by adapting to it, but by expanding it. From the narrative depth of Wings to the worldwide reach of Love Yourself and their Billboard-topping English releases, their trajectory has reshaped how pop operates across language and geography. Their influence now extends far beyond music into fashion, culture, and digital fandom infrastructure. Currently, the group is on hiatus because of military service obligations, with members pursuing solo work as the group’s collective future enters a holding pattern that still feels globally significant.

Bella Poarch

Bella Poarch’s entry into pop was shaped entirely by internet visibility, but her music has consistently leaned into darker emotional framing. “Build a B*tch” introduced a stylized, self-aware pop identity that extended into the Dolls EP, where themes of control and identity became more pronounced. Her work operates in the overlap between performance, persona, and platform-native culture. Rather than following a traditional album-tour structure, she has remained active through selective releases and digital presence, maintaining momentum on her own terms.

Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast has grown from intimate indie beginnings into a fully realized artistic ecosystem led by Michelle Zauner. Records like Psychopomp and Soft Sounds from Another Planet established a foundation built on grief and memory, while Jubilee expanded that palette into something brighter and more expansive. The success of Crying in H Mart positioned Zauner as a cross-disciplinary voice operating beyond music alone. In recent years, her work has moved between selective touring, soundtrack composition, and new creative development, reflecting a more deliberate, multi-medium practice.

JENNIE

JENNIE’s presence in pop operates at the intersection of precision, image, and global visibility. As a member of BLACKPINK, she helped define one of the most dominant K-pop groups of the streaming era, while “SOLO” introduced a parallel identity built around control and restraint. Her influence now extends heavily into fashion and luxury branding, reinforcing her role as both musician and cultural figure. More recently, she has been balancing group legacy with a more deliberate solo direction, signaling a gradual shaping of her individual artistic lane.

ericdoa

ericdoa emerged from the fragmented digital ecosystems that shaped hyperpop’s early identity, where sound, identity, and internet culture blurred together. Tracks like “sad4whattt” and “fantasize” helped define a glitch-heavy emotional palette that quickly circulated online. Over time, his work has shifted toward more structured songwriting while maintaining its synthetic edge across projects like COA and Things With Wings. He continues to operate in the space between underground experimentation and pop adjacency, contributing to the ongoing evolution of post-hyperpop language.

Audrey Nuna

Audrey Nuna’s work sits in a constantly shifting space between R&B, pop, and experimental production. Early releases like “Damn Right” and “Comic Sans” introduced a voice defined by control and unpredictability, later expanded on her debut TRENCH. Her music often resists conventional structure in favor of texture, vocal precision, and mood-driven design. Alongside solo work, she has contributed to projects including KPop Demon Hunters, extending her presence into multimedia spaces. She is currently in a selective release phase, continuing to refine a sound that feels deliberately unbound.

Wallice

Wallice arrived through the internet-native indie wave, where early songs gained traction through streaming culture and algorithmic discovery. Off the Rails established her voice as conversational and observational, shaped by the emotional dissonance of early adulthood. Signing with Dirty Hit placed her within a new generation of indie artists redefining the genre’s infrastructure. Since then, she has continued releasing singles and performing live, building momentum through consistency rather than reinventing herself, steadily expanding her footprint within modern indie pop.

REI AMI

REI AMI’s music operates in a space where pop becomes performance, distortion, and identity all at once. Early tracks like “DICTATOR” introduced a theatrical edge to her sound, while “Freak” marked her breakout into wider recognition. Her FOIL EP expanded that framework into a more cohesive exploration of self-image and emotional volatility through experimental pop production. Her involvement with the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack added another layer to her evolving visibility. She continues to build a catalogue that sits between pop structure and conceptual expression.

debbii dawson

debbii dawson represents a quieter strain of indie pop shaped by restraint, texture, and emotional understatement. Her early releases developed a small but attentive audience drawn to her minimal production style and introspective writing. Rather than aiming for immediacy, her work unfolds slowly, built on subtle emotional detail rather than traditional hooks. She is currently in a gradual development phase, continuing to release music at a measured pace while refining a sound that prioritizes atmosphere over scale.