Sara and her debut EP, "Before I Knew It"
As Sara flips through old notebooks filled with doodles of sharks and crossed out lines, she reminisces of her journey through middle school drama, finding music as an emotional outlet, and her songwriting process.
Public opinion seems to think that Sara’s debut EP album, “Chrysallis”, was long overdue, given her extensive list of self-released songs on music streaming sites. Before Sara signed onto Analos Music Group, she had already amassed an organic following on social media. Sara was primarily active on her Youtube channel, ‘Osaka Honey’, which has a little over 550 thousand subscribers as of this interviews. Sara shares that she had a tumultuous relationship with her school peers, especially with the range of mixed reactions toward her online fame. “It was always hard for me to make a lot of friends because I couldn’t really tell who was being genuine and who only saw me for my online presence.” Sara said that her family and a small group of friends were her anchor throughout navigating this balance. “Sometimes I feel torn between wanting to be a normal girl and wanting to keep reaching for the stars.” Music and songwriting is Sara’s outlet for sorting through her thoughts. Sara first realised this when her good friends pointed it out to her. “I have a million playlists for very specific moods,” she laughs. But it is by allowing herself to feel, to experience such a diverse range of music genres, that allowed Sara to finally find her voice.
The title song of ‘Chrysallis’, “Before I Knew It” was a remastered version of one of Sara’s earliest songs. A melodic piano pop piece with a killer strings ensemble, “Before I Knew It” tells of a young heartache after gaining perspective on maturing in life. Narratively, the song is loosely based on conversations Sara had during high school graduation season. “I tend to write lyrics based on my experiences because that is my truth,” she shares. The song has streamed almost half a billion times within a month of its posting on Spotify and Youtube respectively.