Esmée is one of the first artists signed to Justin Timberlake’s Interscope imprint Tennman Records, but a mere two years ago, this Dutch 20-year-old was just a pancake house waitress with a webcam and a dream. Esmée was 17 when she began posting videos of herself on YouTube singing her favorite hits by Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Pink, and Natasha Bedingfield, which she recorded in the bedroom of her suburban home of Oosterbeek in the Netherlands.

Within nine months, Esmée’s videos had racked up 21 million views and the teenager became the No. 1 Most-Subscribed to Musician in the history of the popular video-sharing website.

But these days of charming amateurism are long gone now; Esmee has released her debut album, an edgy, soulful pop-R&B set that Esmée says “truly reflects who I am as a person. It really sounds like me.” Clearely, Europe loves that sound.