SINGAPORE — If you would like to see Mandopop singer Kenny Khoo stay on in the music industry, now is the time to show him some love. The rookie singer-songwriter said he has given himself five years to make it in the music industry, before deciding whether he should continue.

“To me, it’s do or die,” the 25-year-old said. “If it really doesn’t work out (for me) as a singer, I will go back to performing at pubs or be a songwriter.”

Not that the Singaporean artiste, who quit his undergraduate studies in business at UniSIM to concentrate on his music career, has much to worry about. Khoo starred in local music movie That Girl In Pinafore last year and his debut album Ten Storeys shot to the No 1 spot on Taiwan’s G-Music sales charts a month after its release in April. Khoo’s manga-character looks and smooth vocals have also won him a sizeable group of fan girls in Taiwan (they call themselves Barbies because he is, well, Ken). But Khoo acknowledged he is only at the start of what would be a very challenging journey to success.

“To be able to constantly do music, write songs for people, perform and make a living out of this is my ultimate goal. I just hope to make a career out of music — but just that itself is not that achievable, honestly, ” Khoo said.

“Of course, I have smaller goals. I want to hold my own concert one day, I hope to act in more movies, write as many songs and come up with as many albums as I can. But, ultimately, I just want to do this as my full-time job.”

While the name Kenny Khoo may still be unfamiliar to most people in Singapore, his career has been two years in the making. The Funkie Monkies artiste has been under the mentorship of veteran musician Eric Ng, who has written songs for the likes of Sandy Lam, A-mei, Wakin Chau and Stefanie Sun. Under Ng’s guidance, Khoo learnt the art of crafting songs.

“All along, I’d thought songwriting was something that could not be cultivated. I’d thought people were born musically inclined or they were not. But I guess I was wrong,” Khoo said.

The duo started having lessons once a week and Khoo was tasked to write a demo and submit two songs a week. “I remember the initial stages were quite painful. I had to force a melody out and I didn’t know where to start. But, at the end of the day, it’s important to have someone constantly pushing you and giving you deadlines. I was locked in the recording studio for two to three hours each day and, under that pressure, I forced myself ... to come up with something.

“If I can’t come up with a full song, I would come up with a chorus or a line. Every day, I built slowly line by line and worked out my melody. And like everything else in the world, you get better with practice.”

It also helped that award-winning Singaporean lyricist Xiao Han lent Khoo a hand in crafting his songs. “My Chinese is not as good,” Khoo admitted. “I came up with the gist and idea for each song, how the story is supposed to be told. Xiaohan amended and polished them — the cheem (Singlish for “difficult”) words are written by her. She’s brilliant.”

For now, Khoo plans to go all out to win as many hearts as he can. From now until Aug 7, he will be giving 10-minute performances at offices around Singapore, so more people will get to know him. But this also means he will have to make some difficult sacrifices.

“I have to be present at all my engagements, so my health is important. This means I have to be very disciplined in terms of sleep and what I eat. So the biggest sacrifice is not being able to drink the soda or eat the Old Chang Kee puffs that I like!”

He added: “I always get very envious when my friends eat pizza in front of me — I feel like killing them!”

Kenny Khoo’s Ten Storeys is available now. If you would like to invite him to perform at your office, contact LJ Chia at lj [at] fmmusic.com.sg