Princess of cover songs Emma Heesters | Sunday Observer

Princess of cover songs Emma Heesters

28 November, 2021
Emma  Heesters
Emma Heesters

With the popularity of Sri Lankan Sinhala song ‘Manike Mage Hithe’ covered by Yohani De Silva (acquiring almost 200 million views for the Youtube music video), a large number of cover versions of it began to make all over the India. The trend started to spread beyond the Indian subcontinent.

Emma Heeseters, a popular Dutch singer, embarked on to make an English version of the song. Her version also began to go viral – for the moment, the number of views it gained is over 2 million. The most positive thing about this cover version is that it could develop an international demand for Sri Lankan music – and it was boosted by another cover version by Ella Protsenko, the mother of musical prodigy violinist Karolina Protsenko who made a violin cover for ‘Manike Mage Hithe’ which also went viral.

Heesters has given a peppy twist to the viral song and wowed netizens with her soulful voice. Apart from her beautiful voice, the other thing that is important in partaking to cover by Heesters is that her huge fan base. She has more than 700,000 Instagram followers while more than 4.71 million Youtube subscribers for her Youtube channel. She has over 232K followers on Facebook and 21.5K followers on Tiktok.

Who is Emma Heesteers?

Emma Heesters was born on January 8, 1996 in s-Gravenpolder, Netherlands. Her father is Ludo Heesters who is a music teacher, and mother is Willian Heesters, a speech therapist. She has a brother as well. She is a Christian. As her father is a music teacher, she was grown up with music all around. She also had an early talent for music and practised to be a singer under the supervision of her mother.

In 2004, Heesters took part in the Children for Children festival as an entry from the province of Zeeland with the number 100 small parties. She was a candidate for the local television program ‘I Can See Your Voice’ as well.

Youtube channel


Emma recently sang Yohani’s world famous ‘Manike Mage Hithe’

Heesters created her YouTube channel on May 2, 2008 when she was 12 years old. But the first music video she uploaded was on February 28, 2014. On September 25, 2015, she released her first cover album titled “Cover Sessions, Volume 1” which comprised the covers of songs such as “Lean On”, “Flashlight” and “Waiting for Love”. In January 2016, she released its second volume, also through her Youtube channel. As of 2018, she had released nine volumes that consisted of her cover songs by other original artistes.

Two of the popular videos upload on her channel titled “Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee – Despacito feat. Justin Bieber (Emma Heesters and Jason Chen Cover)” and “Andmesh – Hanya Rindu (English version by Emma Heesters)” has gained over 10 million views. Other popular cover songs by her are “Charlie Puth – Attention (Emma Heesters Cover)” with 9.9 m views, “DJ Snake – Let Me Love You ft. Justin Bieber (Emma Heesters Cover)” with 9.1 m views, “DJ Khaled – I’m the One ft. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne (Emma Heesters Cover)” with 6.2 m views, and “Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello – Señorita (Acoustic) (Emma Heesters & Jason Cover) on Spotify and Apple” with 5.2 m views.

“The Truth Untold”, “Fake Love”, “You are the reason”, and “Lean On” are some famous songs covered and released by Emma over the years.

Super star

Emma started working professionally as a singer in 2017. In 2019, she was the support act for the band Boyce Avenue. She also teamed up with Kurt Hugo Schneider many times and even performed at VidCon in the US and the UK. She appeared on the Netherland’s most viewed TV show ‘Beste Zangers’ and went Platinum with her debut release from the show ‘Pa Olvidarte’ which has crossed more than 12 m streams on YouTube. It also topped the Dutch charts at #2 and remained in the charts for 13 weeks in streaming services. In November 2019, she was named Netherland’s first winner of the MTV’s Push Award.

Heesters has become a super star as well as a social media sensation. She is a member of famous YouTube Star list, and Wikifamouspeople has ranked her as of the popular celebs list.

Popularity among Tamils

The success she achieved attributes to her talent and hard work.Emma Heesters is especially popular among Tamil music lovers, because she often uploads the covers of Tamil songs on her Youtube channel. On September 11, 2021, she uploaded her cover version of a Tamil movie song ‘Rowdy Baby’ by actor Dhanush and playback singer Dhee. Starring Dhanush and Sai Pallavi, ‘Rowdy Baby’ is one of the most popular Tamil songs in recent times – the track has garnered over 1.2 billion views on YouTube since its release in 2018. However, her cover collected over 1,101,472 views for November 21, 2021. Social media users heaped praises on her spot-on rendition, especially of the right pronunciations. It was not just Tamil movie buffs and fans of Dhanush, Sai Pallavi and Dhee who dropped comments, but viewers from other countries also expressed their admiration for the cover track.

Prior to ‘Rowdy Baby’, on April 30, 2021, the singer uploaded her cover of Arivu and Dhee’s hit independent single Enjoy Enjaami which garnered 9,231,136 views for November 21, 2021.Heesters is about five feet five inches tall and weighs around 55kg. Her eyes are dark brown. The hair is blonde. Her smile is cute while the body is slim and fit - she maintains her fitness as well. The skin tone of her is fair. Apart from a singer and a song writer, she is also a model and a performer. Heesters is in a relationship with Wesley Hoedt from 2020 who is a professional football player. She is a gorgeous and pretty girl. But regarding her personal and professional life, there are no rumours and controversies in her which seems she wants her personal life to be private from the public.

Heesters’s net worth is not exactly known. But if roughly estimated, according to Wikipedia, it is about $1.97 million. Some estimates it as $2.75 million. The prediction is only based on YouTube advertising revenue. The net worth may actually be more.

Heesters’ YouTube channel garners over 272.99 thousand views every day. If a channel is monetised through ads, it earns money for every thousand video views. YouTube channels may earn between $3 and $7 per one thousand video views. With this data, it is predicted that her channel generates $32.76 thousand in advertisement revenue a month and $491.37 thousand a year. On the higher end, Emma Heesters could make close to $884.47 thousand a year.

Heesters likely has additional revenue sources as well. Influencers could promote their own products, get sponsorships, or generate revenue through affiliate commissions.

But it is not the net worth that lifts Emma Heesters in high, it is her unique voice and her humble eye towards the art works of developing countries.

Comments