If you've been on social media for even five minutes in 2021, you've definitely come across people talking about how much they love the song "Drivers License" by Olivia Rodrigo.
How to listen to drivers license by Olivia Rodrigo
The pop ballad broke the Spotify record for most daily streams for a non-holiday song with over 15 million streams.
On Jan. 11, "drivers license" by @Olivia_Rodrigo set the Spotify record for most streams in a day for a non-holiday song. On Jan. 12, the song continued to beat its own record 📈 #SpotifyCharts https://t.co/daLUI4BrYp
With numbers like that, it looks like 2021 has its first big music star.
So let's just answer the question: Who is Olivia Rodrigo?
Olivia was born in California and is also Filipino, Irish, and German. She explained her father's background in an interview with Center for Asian American Media:
"My great-grandfather immigrated here from the Philippines when he was just a teenager. He’s my grandma’s dad, and my grandpa is also Filipino as well. My dad grew up in a house where they were always making Filipino food, his grandpa always spoke Tagalog. All of those traditions have trickled down to our generation. Every Thanksgiving we have lumpia, and things like that."
Olivia is currently 17, but her career actually began as an actor at age 12, when she starred in the direct-to-video movie, An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success.
Olivia also played Paige on the Disney Channel show Bizaardvark for three years.
But Olivia really got to flex her musical muscles in the 2019 series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. For this role, she was able to sing and write songs, like "All I Want," which went super viral on TikTok as a widely used sound.
And for the HSMTMTS soundtrack, Olivia cowrote the song "Just For a Moment" with costar Joshua Bassett, who she also reportedly dated. This relationship — and eventual breakup — inspired the song "Drivers License."
