Asian American Refugee Rapper Star2 to Relase Real Life EP – Including Tracks with Luh Kel, Lil Poppa and $tupid Young

Star2, the up-and-coming rapper from San Diego, dropped his acclaimed single and music video, “Real Life” on November 12, 2021 with over 780,000 views on WorldStar Hip Hop. His follow up love song “Thinkin Bout You” scored over a million and over 1M on his official video on YouTube. “Run Away” released in March ran up over 4M on WorldStar (on the Lyric Video!); 2M on the official music video one week later. His EP, also named Real Life is due April 29th with a total of six tracks – including features with noted rappers Luh Kel (I Wanna Get F’d Up) from St. Louis, Lil Poppa (Real Life) from Jacksonville, Florida and $tupid Young (Big Bands) from Long Beach, California.

The concept for the EP project centers around Star2’s experience coming from a Thai refugee camp at age six and then adjusting to poverty, urban blight, racism, and gang violence in East San Diego, California. Sprinkled among two “conscious rap” tracks – “Real Life” and “Run Away” – Star2 delights us with romance in “December” and “Thinkin Bout You”, heartache in “I Wanna Get F’d Up” and street life in “Big Bands”.

“Real Life includes the full experience of life…love, heartache, despair, survival, friendship, and social consciousness. Everyone’s life includes all of these things. I wanted to include the full range of my life,” Star2 explains.

“I want fans to feel my music …everyone relates to my break-up songs. My Ka-ren people also have a special bond with songs that touch on our struggle and suffering – in the jungle and Thai refugee camps because of intentional genocide by Burmese soldiers and the Myanmar Junta and now in other countries as refugees.”

Star2 began his life in Mae La, a 55,000 person refugee camp in the Tak Province of Thailand, on the Myanmar border, after his family fled Burmese soldiers who burned down their village. The largest of nine refugee camps in the area, 90 percent of the inhabitants are persecuted Ka-ren indigenous people. Star2’s family walked 500 miles through the jungle to reach the camp after many had been killed. Pregnant in the camp, his teen mother abandoned him and fled to Bangkok. His grandmother took him in and included him with her other four young children when she won a chance to migrate to the US by lottery. Star2 found himself in inner-city San Diego with other refugees, gangs, poverty, crime and drugs. His uncle succumbed to gangs and drugs, jail, continued addiction, and now lives in a group home.

Star2 found music. “I began rapping in middle-school, in a home studio that a close friend created in our apartment complex. At first it was all fun, but it began to be an outlet for my emotions. I needed music every day to cope. We made a few music videos that got a lot of attention on YouTube. I also started performing locally at school and in the community and felt high – on top of the world. I never looked back.”

Star2 has received attention from WorldStar, AllHipHop, Earmilk, and Notion. In 2021 he released his debut EP Love Story featuring collaborations with Sacramento’s MarMar Oso and YSN Flow from Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

“I am a melodic hip-hop artist who raps. I write and sing a lot of break-up songs and romantic ballads but also throw down gritty songs about how I came up; I also enjoy dance/club songs that you can let loose and move. Justin Bieber, Tyga, Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars and Juice Wrld are my influences, more recently, Polo G, Kid Laroi, and Lil Poppa.”

Star2 is headlining a concert in Omaha, Nebraska on Ka-ren Martyr’s Day in June to benefit the camps.

“I recently became a US citizen and passed my citizenship test. It was a thrill and the reason my grandmother took me with her and her four children –out of the refugee camp fourteen years ago to safety. I hope to make it big and give back to those left behind. I want the world to know about the struggle of the Ka-ren people from Burma.”

Check out Star2’s latest video for “Run Away” and follow him on social media for updates on his forthcoming EP Real Life.