Helly Luv established her world-pop credentials in winter 2013 with her debut hit single, "Risk It All". Born Helan Abdulla on November 16, 1988, in Urmia, Iran; during the Persian Gulf War. Her family escaped death during Saddam Hussein regime to live in Finland. Helly Luv exhibited a certain star quality as a young child; by winning a scholarship to the best dance school in Finland, competing in European championship finals and signing a five-year contract with NIKE women. Because she lived in the fairly remote country of Finland, she never foresaw the sort of stardom she would later obtain. At the age of 18, she felt ready to pursue her next step. Hence, she saved all her money to purchase a plane ticket to Los Angeles, California. Helly Luv came to LA believing in the “American Dream,” yet nothing transpired as planned. She lived in a small, dirty apartment rent house, where the landlord would blackmail her for more money; which would lead Helly Luv to survive on 1-dollar crackers. She tried meeting music producers to share with them her talent, but Helly Luv would soon see the ugly side of the music business and often told her talent was not what people would look for. Just before giving up and leaving America, she received a MySpace message from music producer Los Da Mystro, requesting her to call him. Helly Luv made the phone call and sang her heart out. In response to her telephone audition, Los Da Mystro flew her out to New York the next day. They met and she signed her first development deal. She had the opportunity to work with The Dream and inspired him to write her a new record. Come winter 2013, Helly Luv signed a music deal with Gawain “G2” Bracy II and G2 Music Group. Soon after, G2 Music Group released "Risk It All," the lively and inspirational leadoff single from Helly Luv’s debut album. Produced almost entirely by Gawain “G2” Bracy II, the song synthesized Latin and Middle - Eastern rhythms with world-pop songwriting. "Risk It All" caught fire almost immediately in Finland, peaking all the way to the top three iTunes singles and contesting with Rihanna’s “Diamonds”. The single soon received much more attention in other countries especially the Middle East with the release of the music video for “Risk It All” in the winter of 2014. Becoming one of the year’s most creative and controversial music video promoted in the Middle East region; from a Kurdish artist. Twenty-four hours after the release of the music video, Helly Luv appeared on the TV news because her music video was spreading like a wildfire. She also began receiving death threats for her controversial music video. Quickly, “Risk It All” reached over 2 million YouTube views and she is making history as a Kurdish artist all within a 4-month time frame. BBC (UK), The Guardian (UK), Times (US), network TV, radio and magazines were talking about a girl that everyone called "The Lion Girl". Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.