Singer/songwriter Karen Rodriguez was born in Miami and raised in New York City. Karen reached national attention on season 10 of American Idol, where she blew audiences away with powerful renditions of “Hero” by Mariah Carey, “If You Had My Love” by Jennifer Lopez, “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars, and “No Me Queda Más” by Selena. Karen became the first bilingual finalist on the show.

Post American Idol, Karen sang background vocals on Marc Anthony’s #1 smash “Vivir Mi Vida” which led to a meeting with Romeo Santos. Romeo asked her to collaborate as a writer on his second album, Formula, Vol 2. Karen co-wrote three songs with Romeo from the project; “Odio” featuring Drake, “Trust” featuring Tego Calderón, and “Gone Forever.” Karen also wrote the Spanish translation of “Somebody” by Natalie La Rose featuring Jencarlos Canela and Kevin Roldan, which was performed at the 2015 Latin American Music Awards.

In 2015, Karen began releasing Spanglish covers of popular songs on her YouTube channel. Her Spanish translations of Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself” reached close to 3m views each; her Spanglish cover of Adele’s “Hello” went viral, surpassing over 10m views on YouTube, and charted #5 on US iTunes Latino chart and #7 Billboard Latin Digital charts. Karen’s Spanish cover of Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself,” titled “Quiérete A Ti” premiered exclusively on SiriusXM’s Viva and Caliente channels in February 2016.