Practicality and passion sometimes must diverge for someone to truly find herself. Such is the story of Los Angeles DIY electro-pop artist, Pontea. Born and raised in the City of Angels in a fairly traditional Persian-American home, Pontea (pronounced “Pon-ta”) would go through her early life playing it safe, while a fire grew inside her telling her to break away from the cultural norms that she knew.
Throughout her youth, she would experiment with performing as a dancer, actress and musician, but ultimately would go on to attend UCLA and major in Physiology. Since graduating college, Pontea has turned away from the practical and is now on her own however, chasing her passion.
Surrounding herself with a group of talented friends and collaborators, Pontea’s “do it yourself by doing it together” approach has seen constant growth since late last year. Building on a handful of self-produced cover videos that have garnered over 100,000 views on YouTube, she began working with up-and-coming producer Sando for her new EP, due out later this year.
With early support from music tastemakers and an ever-growing Internet following, the title track and first single from the EP, “Unpredictable,” has been streamed over 20,000 times on SoundCloud in just a couple of weeks.
Moving ahead with a number of upcoming appearances in Southern California leading to her debut release, Pontea is making it work for herself against the practical odds.
For more information, check out IAmPontea.com
