New Album Release, Dee Lestari Learns to Create TikTok Content from Friends

"Maybe the challenge is more about, what is it, the way to promote. Because this is kind of new, you know. I ended up getting TikTok because of this album! I didn't have TikTok before, but because of this album they said, 'Dee, you have to be on TikTok.' Huff, okay then, I have TikTok now," said Dee Lestari when met at Coma, Mbloc Space, South Jakarta, Wednesday (03/06/2026).

Dee feels there is a significant difference between promoting work in the past and now. If in the past the promotional channels were clearly structured through television and radio, now musicians are required to be more creative in marketing their work independently.

"I was quite surprised because when I think about it, it was actually simpler back then, you know. Although now we have more freedom, what is it, we can be creative starting from making the content and everything. In the past, we were like obedient to television, obedient to radio, but all the channels were clear," she said.

Because she feels still inexperienced in content creation, Dee is not hesitant to ask for help from her friends in her Zumba community. She learns a lot of technical things, from how to do live broadcasts to understanding the different audience characteristics on each platform.

"I also asked my Zumba friends to teach me, 'How do you create content?' you know. They invited me to go live, and then 'Oh, going live is like this,' you know. It was strange, but now I'm starting to understand little by little. Even the algorithms, the audience characteristics there are very different from Instagram, for example. It became a new experience," she said.

Although she has to adapt to the digital world, Dee still does not forget her identity as a storyteller. For her, whether as a singer, songwriter, or writer, she remains a storyteller who uses different mediums."I embrace all three. So for me, that's actually my uniqueness, that I can't separate from Dee the singer, I can't separate from Dee the songwriter, or Dee the writer. That's why I always say, essentially, I am a storyteller," Dee explained.

Through the album (Don't) Fall in Love, Dee Lestari wants to convey a message about the journey of the heart that must be accepted and lived as it is. She believes that every life experience, no matter how bitter, will ultimately lead to a happy ending."So maybe this is about the journey of the heart. That every life experience we embrace, we accept and we live through it. And the journey of the heart is not all sweet, but as someone who believes in happy endings, just as I composed this song, I believe that in the end, all life experiences will bear sweet fruit," she said.