KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 26 — Dasha Logan is setting the tone to her own music after growing up to the songs of her father Loganathan Arumugam, the co-lead vocalist of the Alleycats.

The 26-year-old not only achieved the commendable feat of reaching number four in the UK Soul charts this week with her first single, Cleverly, but also wrote the lyrics for it.

The song features underground soul singer Paul Johnson of the United Kingdom.

“I went to the UK to try and find my own footing without anyone knowing who my father was.

“It was tough. I knocked on many doors,” she said, of her father who died seven years ago from cancer. 

“They (pub owners) didn’t even give me a chance on open mic nights.”

Born Priyadashini Loganathan, she said her break came towards the end of her first trip to the UK three years ago when a friend spoke highly of her talent to the owners.

This enabled her to perform on the club circuit upon her return to London the following year.  

Fast forward to this day and Dasha is still in awe of her latest accomplishment. 

“I keep checking the website to make sure it’s on the official page. But it has not sunk in. I think it will hit me if I get a phone call asking me to come perform somewhere in the UK,” she said.

“My brother Vigneswaran gave me the best news yesterday. Not only am I on Spotify but I’ve also made onto Shazam.”

Placing in the UK Soul charts is determined by the number of airplays and not by listeners’ voting, while Shazam is an app for smartphones best known for music identification. 

In terms for her first single, she said that it all started when she met Dean Ricketts, co-owner of Area Boy Music two years ago. 

Ricketts, his partner Digger Elias and the team behind the new label come with vast connections including signing mega stars like Terence Trent D’Arby and Jamiroquai, when they were in Sony Music. 

“At our first meeting, we got to talking about my late father and I got all emotional. Fortunately, that didn’t scare Dean off, and he got his producer Osiki Ojo to send me two backing tracks to see what I could come up with,” she added.

“I wrote a couple of drafts and finally came up with two that I was satisfied with. They then asked me to go into the studio with Osiki and record them. We did Cleverly first and the next weekend, we recorded Leave Your Man,” she said.

She said the lyrics for Cleverly were inspired by two friends.

One who found out that her boyfriend was married while the other had told her fiance, ‘If you ever cheat on me, you better do it cleverly so you never get caught’.

Do it cleverly eventually became the chorus to the song. 

“Dean was a little concerned if I was giving out the wrong message that I was condoning cheating partners. But I told him I wasn’t because I am sure, someone, somewhere is thinking of it’,” said the animated Penangite.

Johnson penned his own lines in the song and recorded it while Dasha was in Malaysia. 

The music label’s concept for the Cleverly music video was to keep it black and white. 

It was brought to life at Frangipani Restaurant & Bar in Kuala Lumpur by videographer Simon Chin and director John Leong, both of whom were recording their maiden music video.

Dasha is among other Malaysians that have made headway on overseas music charts with another being veteran pub singer-songwriter Gerald Singh. 

His latest single Crazy charted number 54 on the US Billboard Indicator Charts according to his Twitter posting earlier this month. 

Her album, with four mixes of the first single is available for purchase on iTunes while the second single Leave Your Man’, will be out next year.