![\"NIKI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VKR53NNVT5GWJNVAHC54P2XFJA.png\")
NIKI moved from Jakarta, Indonesia to the United States to pursue music (Photo Courtesy of Tara Su). <\/p>\nUSC\u2019s Asian Pacific American Student Assembly (APASA), International Student Assembly (ISA) and Speakers Committee hosted their annual speaker event with NIKI on Thursday, Apr. 16.<\/p>\n
At only 15-years-old, singer-songwriter NIKI opened up for Taylor Swift in her hometown of Jakarta, Indonesia. Seven years later, at the age of 22, NIKI released her breakout single \u201cEvery Summertime\u201d for Marvel\u2019s \u201cShang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings.\u201d What began with singing covers on YouTube has transformed into a long, successful career.<\/p>\n
Moderated by USC Speakers Committee\u2019s Director of Operations, Josh Kim, and ISA\u2019s Chair of Professional Affairs, Yungyee \u201cYY\u201d Chia, the interview followed NIKI\u2019s journey to the United States and her rise in the music industry.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cThere are genuinely no right decisions\u2026there are only decisions that you make.\u201d <\/p>\n
NIKI recounts the pivotal conversation with her parents: telling them she wants to drop out of school and move to the United States. Rather than completely dismissing her ideas, her parents wanted to understand her dream and why she was making this decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a lot of courage to be uncomfortable, to be disliked\u2026and to disappoint whoever, but discomfort is where you grow,\u201d NIKI said. <\/p>\n
Moving to the States, all NIKI had was the reference of high schoolers from the TV show \u201cVictorious\u201d and the dream of pursuing music. Although she constantly experienced homesickness for her life in Jakarta and culture shocks in the States, she took this as an opportunity to grow.<\/p>\n
During the Q and A session, sophomore Tara Su described how college is one of those times where everyone around you seems to have it figured out, but a lot of students are also quietly lost. <\/p>\n
Su asked NIKI, \u201cWhen [she has] those moments of uncertainty, what [does she] turn to?\u201d <\/p>\n
To remedy the uncertainties and troubles of life, NIKI would lean on her friends and her art. <\/p>\n
NIKI moved from Jakarta, Indonesia to the United States to pursue music (Photo Courtesy of Tara Su). <\/p>\n
\u201cArt celebrates uncertainty,\u201d NIKI said. \u201cNothing can really save you from yourself\u2026but [art] celebrates our ordinary lives and ordinary experiences and makes them feel extraordinary.\u201d <\/p>\n
Whether that is her chosen craft of songwriting, reading books while on the road or tending to her home garden, NIKI uses her creativity as an outlet.<\/p>\n
NIKI reveals how the bees in her garden were one of the main inspirations for her latest album, \u201cBuzz.\u201d She described how, when gardening, \u201csometimes it\u2019s not the seed\u2019s fault that it doesn\u2019t sprout when the environment\u2019s wrong\u2026It\u2019s beautiful because in nature you can\u2019t plan anything, it just takes or doesn\u2019t.\u201d These pivotal life lessons she learned throughout her journey are reflected in the prose of her latest album.<\/p>\n
When a student asked if NIKI could give the audience any hints on the upcoming album, the audience erupted into applause and excited cheers. NIKI teased that she is \u201cdefinitely working on new music\u201d and that fans \u201chave seen many different versions of [her] in the past musically and whatever\u2019s next is going to be a marriage of all of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"NIKI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MDSNANIJ2BDN3OVOTFMYXE2CYU.png\")
NIKI performed \u201cThe Apartment We Won\u2019t Share” and “Take Care” during the event (Photo courtesy of Tara Su). <\/p>\n
To end the night, NIKI performed an intimate, acoustic set in the brimming auditorium. Her first song, \u201cTake Care,\u201d details the lingering love after a breakup, set to a melodious guitar riff. With inspirations from \u201cEverything Everywhere All At Once,\u201d NIKI performed her second song, \u201cThe Apartment We Won\u2019t Share,\u201d about grieving the possibilities of what life could have been. As a dedication to the city of Los Angeles, the audience sang in chorus with NIKI to close the event with \u201cLa La Lost You.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USC\u2019s Asian Pacific American Student Assembly (APASA), International Student Assembly (ISA) and Speakers Committee hosted their annual speaker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[120372,120375,48,52,51,47,50,49,111227,120370,120371,3533,120373,25671,120374,120376],"class_list":["post-279253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-asian-pacific-american-student-assembly","tag-international-student-assembly","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-niki","tag-niki-music","tag-niki-new-album","tag-usc","tag-usc-apasa","tag-usc-events","tag-usc-isa","tag-usc-speakers-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}