Meet Rika, the Half-Indian Teenager Rocking the UK Pop Scene

The half-Indian-half-Serbian singer is creating a storm with ‘No Need’.

Meet Rika, short for Chandrika Darbari, United Kingdom’s newest pop sensation. 17-year-old Rika’s single No Need topped the charts in Britain and became BBC Radio’s number one song of the week.

Born to a Serbian mother and an Indian father, Rika has grown up in North-West London and is one of the few to break into the vibrant Western music scene as a British-Asian artist.

The pop artist’s track, No Need, a mix of dance and pop, has been described as a “highly positive” track and has managed to garner 864,708 views since it was uploaded in late September.

Fact: Rika admits that she took only 10 minutes to write No Need one night when she couldn’t get it out of her head.

Desi Roots

Rika embraces the mixed culture she’s inherited and enjoys Serbian music just as much as she enjoys celebrating the festival of lights, Diwali. The pop singer performed on Diwali to a crowd of 35,000 people.

“Here is some of my performance at Diwali in London festival in Trafalgar Square yesterday for 35,000 people! Had such an amazing time performing these songs. Thanks to everyone who came out! Happy Diwali,” she wrote on Facebook.

Rika with a Serbian Singer, Suzana Mancic.

She’s also performed at the Miss Serbia contest.

here is a clip from the Miss Serbia performance 🇷🇸❤️💕

A post shared by RIKA ॐ (@rikaldn) on Oct 26, 2017 at 1:30am PDT

“I wrote ‘No Need’ back in April and it was because I couldn’t sleep. It was 1 am and I went down to the piano and started playing around with some melodies, and the song actually came very naturally to me”.

Rika to The Rolling Stone

Earlier in 2016, Rika penned and dedicated a song to one of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, For Peace In Syria, which got a million views on YouTube. The song was shot in a studio in Delhi.

Rika, who began composing music at an early age, was recently in Mumbai to meet labels as she gears up to release her album. We can certainly expect to see and hear more of this half-desi artist.

pleasure meeting you yesterday 🙌🏽✨ big things coming... 😏 @devsanyal

A post shared by RIKA ॐ (@rikaldn) on Nov 1, 2017 at 12:54am PDT

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