Karina Pasian is generous with her grins. Maybe it’s because she can’t help flashing her recently tin-free smile. But it’s more likely that the 16-year-old singer is just cheesing about life itself. Flanked by her brother, sister, and manager dad, the Dominican-American high schooler is very much the bright-eyed teenager as she takes a tour of Def Jam’s Midtown New York City headquarters—until she starts greeting the staff by name, that is.
“There was a bidding war over me,” Pasian says about the industry onslaught that led to her seven-figure deal with Def Jam. Bad Boy CEO Diddy and Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine both battled Jay-Z to sign the R&B chanteuse when she was only 13. “It was a great position to be in. Even though I’m just a regular girl, it made me feel really special and important. This is something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Pasian, who calls industry legend (and VIBE founder) Quincy Jones her “godfather in music,” attends New York’s prestigious Professional Performing Arts High School, where she has trained in classical piano, voice, theater, and dance. And although her first language is Russian—both her parents graduated from a Russian university—she learned to sing in six other languages.
Her father, Rafael, plays the role of stage dad with a feverish finesse and, by the looks of things, holds court more like Venus and Serena Williams’ quiet pops than Beyoncé’s forthright father, Mathew Knowles. “I saw her development as a singer and said, ‘Let’s do it for real. This is fun, but let’s take this fun and pay some dividends,’” he says. “Success is not a destiny, it’s a journey.”
That journey’s on full display on the singer’s precocious “Sixteen At War.” Written by The-Dream and produced by Tricky Stewart, it’s a rousing R&B anthem about the pressures of a teen girl’s day-to-day life. On it, she recognizes the power of her assets and makes no apologies for keeping her “lady lumps” under wraps: “I want you to love my mind, my style, my smile / I want you to know the best of me / I want to belong without being treated as property.”
Alicia Keys comparisons are bound to flow as heavily as the accolades. When a 12-year-old Pasian saw Keys perform for the first time, the ivory-tickling, ballad-belting star reminded her of someone she knew. “I thought, ‘Oh my God! She’s me!’” exclaims the fresh-faced beauty. “Hey!” Rafael says, recalling the moment, “they’re stealing my idea!”
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