The year was 2016, when everything in Janifer Cheng’s life seemingly changed. After living in New York City for most of her life after emigrating from Taiwan, she relocated to Kissimmee, Florida to make it her new home. Over the course of a few years—which included a life-altering global pandemic—Janifer realized that something was missing amidst the palm trees: a sense of community. Prior to her move, she was a local rising singer and bona fide karaoke champ. Her wins are stacked:

1st Karaoke Idol winner for The Karaoke Show (2004)
1st place Winner, Digital Idol, live band karaoke competition for Internet Week NY (2010), by Mashable and Zemoga
New York State Women’s Karaoke Champion (2011), by the World Karaoke Championships, with Nationals seen on ABC’s “Karaoke Battle USA”
Celebrity Karaoke Idol (2014), by New York ComicCon Super Week and Clear Channel Spectracolor

She’s also held multiple positions within the Entertainment industry—from Universal Music Group to Sony, and Viacom. Janifer’s ability to find a real life community at local karaoke spots in Florida was too far of a commute, so her therapist suggested something new: find her community online. Janifer Cheng is gradually building a community on TikTok Live and Discord, fueled by her love of karaoke. Holding Live sessions multiple times a week, she sings for the cellphone cameras and is met with cheer, comments, gifts, and love from people all over the world. She even has her own fanbase #TeamJan and #JanFansUnited. Janifer shares her story here with us as a reminder that karaoke brings people together—near and far.

When did you first begin singing karaoke?

Fun story: my mother owned an Irish Pub while I was growing up. She was a manager first, and then she ended up owning it. One of the things she would offer—and not many places did this in Manhattan—was Karaoke for the lunch crowd, and then later on the evening crowd. This was back when it was on Laserdisc. I was still in middle school, but I would be working for her, during the summers. She would have me bus tables during lunch, and then I would stick around because I had to stay until my mother left. So, they would have me sing karaoke. I’m this middle schooler, singing in this Irish Pub in the Financial District.

After being a middle schooler in karaoke, what happened next?

I was able to get into Bayside High School, which was the second best music school (in New York City), just under LaGuardia. I had auditioned for LaGuardia, and I got in, but my mother forbade me from becoming a performer. She said, “If you set foot in that school again, don’t even bother coming home. Don’t even bother being my child.” So without her knowing, I applied to the second best school as well. I auditioned, got in, and I said, “Oh, I’m going for their Law program.” For four years in high school, I was a Choir Major. Our local Channel 11 used to have 11 Days of Christmas, and I did one of those performances. I got into Lincoln Center, and I was part of a group that did a chamber performance at Avery Fisher Hall. I was invited to be a part of the Manhattan School of Music choir. I was taking any opportunity I could to sing.

How did you find your way back to karaoke?

After high school, I ended up taking a break, because I kind of crashed and burned in college. In 1999-2000, I went back into music, because it was something that I loved. I started performing, I started singing, I started doing competitions. I got involved in an off, off, off Broadway show called The Karaoke Show, directed by TONY Award winner Diane Paulus. It was the same troupe that did The Donkey Show, back in (Greenwich) Village. Basically, they were doing Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors in a karaoke bar. So I was doing that, and they decided to run a karaoke competition at the end of it. Guess who won? I kept winning repeatedly to the point where they had to retire me, and then hired me as their photographer. I did that for several years, and from there a DJ did karaoke shows at one of the gay bars in NYC, and he’d hire me to host karaoke. Karaoke ended up being a way for me to escape and gain some sanity in my life. I ended up doing a whole mess of competitions, winning…and winning money.

Talk about your return to karaoke online, once you moved to Florida.

I was living here in Florida, and I’d been really depressed, so I was going through therapy. My therapist and I were touching on a lot of things, and she asked me, “What brings you happiness?” I was like, “Singing did,” and I gave her the short summary. She said, “Well, why don’t you just go and do karaoke one night and see how it works out?” And I did. I went to this karaoke joint on an off night, so it wasn’t crowded, and I was able to sing two songs. It felt really good. I’m in Kissimmee, though. I’m not in Orlando proper, so to get to any of the decent karaoke joints, I’d have to drive anywhere between an hour to 45 minutes just to get there. And most karaoke joints don’t start until 10 o’clock. I’m in bed by then. I’m like, “Let me find an alternate way to do this.” The other thing was that, since I work from home, I’m very isolated. Being an extrovert, that just didn’t sit well. I hadn’t been able to meet that many people while living here, so there wasn’t really an opportunity for me to make friends. So I started doing TikTok Live, just to get myself into the habit of meeting other people and singing again. Eventually, I started gaining a community of people who wanted to chat, and then it started morphing. I started meeting other hosts that were also performers and singers. One of the ones that I’m really connected to is a rapper out in South Korea named C.Swag. He’s my buddy. And then I started meeting more singers and performers. I’ve met a lot of talented people, a lot of nice people. People started gravitating toward the content that I was doing, so that’s how my audience started growing.

Now that you’re building this amazing community on TikTok Live, how are you bringing your love of karaoke and competition together?

On occasion, I’ll do a battle where I’ll sing…we’ll do it like a music battle. So I’m still kind of incorporating it, and I’m not stopping that because it’s something that did give me joy. And it still does give me joy. To be quite honest…I’m kind of itching for another competition.

Follow Janifer Cheng on TikTok @JaniferTheGreat

Janifer’s Top Five Songs To Sing At Karaoke: