The Filipino-Australian singer talks to Rappler about his YouTube beginnings, what he loves most about being a musician, and the new genres he tries out in his upcoming album
MANILA, Philippines – When Grant Perez first began posting his song covers on YouTube, he didn’t really think anything big would come out of it.
It had all started out as a fun hobby — one that he didn’t take too seriously. He’d often keep his video descriptions short, with his cover of Daniel Caesar’s “Best Part,” for example, simply captioned, “best fart.”
As more people began to take notice of the Filipino-born Australian’s videos, though, he suddenly found himself writing his own music, and not long after, performing on stage for big crowds as grentperez.
“I never really wrote my own music seriously until 2019 or 2020. I used to tease some stuff on my Instagram and on YouTube but people really wanted to hear more about it, so I just listened to the comments and I uploaded something to YouTube and people liked it,” he told Rappler.
The internet can be a scary place filled with ruthless commenters, but he was lucky enough to have found a supportive online audience that pushed him to take his music beyond their little circle. He would eventually go on to distribute one of his self-produced songs — “Wait For You” — to Spotify in 2021, and the only way has been up since then.
Building a community and strengthening his Filipino identity
It’s the 2021 hit “Cherry Wine” that people most now commonly associate grentperez with. The song restores the easygoing feel that modern romance needs (a quality that’s persisted across most of his succeeding releases) and perhaps was what drew so many of his listeners in.
All the love he’s been receiving from the community he’s built over the years, then, is the one thing grentperez seems to be the most in awe about, and with good reason.
“The craziest thing that I’ve heard and that I’ve experienced is the experience that I’ve given to other people. It’s crazy that people associate so many different memories and so many experiences with my music,” he said.
Endearingly, it was also grentperez’s penchant for music that brought him closer to his Filipino roots. For one, after a deluge of requests from his YouTube subscribers, he finally released an OPM version of his well-loved “sing u to sleep” series, where he had, of course, sung viewers to sleep with relaxed renditions of Filipino hits like Zack Tabudlo’s “Binibini” and Orange & Lemons’ “Hanggang Kailan.”
He’s returned to the Philippines several times since then, too, staging his first show for Filipino fans in 2023, performing at the homegrown Filipino music festival Wanderland in 2024, and doing promotional tours in the country in 2025.
“I’ll always love coming back [to the Philippines]. Does my Tagalog get better? No. But it will, I promise,” he quipped.
Constant sonic shifts
Grant’s music has become one of the most beloved soundtracks for classic love in the modern age. But despite having quickly developed a “signature sound” since officially starting his career in 2021, he hasn’t been one to shy away from trying new things — and his 2024 release “2DK” is a testament to that.
If you were made to guess the artist behind the laidback, ’90s hip-hop-like song at the first listen, grentperez probably wouldn’t be your first answer. In the best way possible, almost the same thing can be said for his R&B single, “Movie Scene.”
“I just wanted to experiment as an artist. I think my duty as a creator and as a creative is to really experiment with different mediums and try different things. I think that’s my definition of what an artist can be or should be,” grentperez said.
These sonic shifts are a welcome addition to Grant’s ever-growing discography, as it turns into a snapshot of his evolution as an artist and the phases of his life, too.
“I definitely retain what my art teachers taught me in high school with the process diaries. Some people used to rip their pages out and the teacher would get angry and say, ‘Don’t rip it out! It shows your process.’ That’s what I want to showcase,” he shared.
With his second album Backflips in a Restaurant pending release, those two singles won’t be the last of what we’ll see of grentperez’s flexibility as an artist. The title sounds like something you’d see in a satirical news headline, but it’s surprisingly the perfect way to describe the songs on the record.
“A restaurant is the home of many different flavors. The music in the album is of many different genres, so they kind of work hand in hand. Every song in there is almost a different genre to each other. A backflip is very chaotic, whereas a restaurant is usually very calm and they kind of oppose each other. It’s like controlled chaos in a way, or chaos in a calm environment,” he explained.
Still himself
Even as grentperez goes on to make a bigger name for himself as an artist, he’s made it clear that he’s always going to remain the same easygoing guy that one day just started posting covers on YouTube from his bedroom.
Music is one of the primary ways he navigates life in his 20s — and it’s one of the platforms that has ironically allowed him to be himself, no matter how much larger the crowds get.
“The separation between Grent to Grant is very similar,” he said, and it’s true.
The 23-year-old’s authentic personality has always shone through, and it’s something he expresses quite outwardly — whether it be in the form of the button pins he likes to accessorize with, or through the sketches he likes to share from time to time.
“To other people, sometimes they look at me as a role model or whatever. I just hope that I’m spreading a good image for people to enjoy watching and whatnot. So I’m very blessed. I’m very happy to have music with me,” he said. – Rappler.com
Content shared from www.rappler.com.