Apex Legends and environmentalist: Stephanie Poetri
Posted on August 8, 2025
Joey Chou
After her 2019 viral hit “I Love You 3000” and a 2021 debut EP “AM:PM”, Indonesian singer-songwriter Stephanie Poetri returns with new music and a performance at 88rising’s Head in the Clouds music festival. We chatted with her engagement, love for video games, and new music.
From 2019’s “I Love You 3000” to now, what is different about you?
Age. Six years older. Maybe dreams. My dreams are different. My home is different. More happy, happier. My weight, gained a couple pounds. Nothing wrong with that. And last one…status, like I’m getting married soon. So that’s fun. We’re not even gonna have a wedding because I don’t necessarily care about weddings. My fiancé, he’s a little bit of a shy boy. So being the center of attention for a whole day is a lot for him. So we’re just gonna go to court and then maybe have a potluck or something…or like a beach day, you know. I’m definitely an extrovert. I’m ENFP. But I’m just so tired. I love hanging out with friends. I just need more sleep all the time.
Is it true that you met your fiancé online? Do you still play Apex Legends?
Yeah, I play Apex all the time. It’s the biggest distraction of them all. I mostly just played it in the past because that’s how me and my fiancé, now, that’s how we started dating, was through Apex legends, pretty much. I mean, I didn’t even know what he looked like, but through mutual friends, I found out that he played apex. So we started playing together, and I thought his voice was really cute. And it’s just a really good test of character because there’s so many boys who get so angry when you’re not that good. And it’s like he was never angry. He never took anything seriously. He was just having fun. And that was obviously like, “Oh, this is like a green flag.” He was never angry at anybody. And then I saw his face, and I was like, “Oh, wait, you’re not ugly. Like, you’re actually my type.” And then now we’re getting married! And I do feel like playing games, it kind of takes me out of the seriousness of daily life because sometimes I’m just so stressed, I just want to forget about it. You know…in bed all day…do not want to leave. I want food to be taken to me in bed. I only get up to go to the bathroom. Honestly, I would just want to sleep all day. I feel like I’ve been in such grind mode lately. I’ve just been working every day, including the weekend. So all I want right now is to just have nothing to do.
Your mom is a well-known singer. Growing up in a musical family, did you always know you were going to do? And why is there suddenly so much talent from Indonesia?
Yeah, it’s so interesting because my dad was a music teacher too. So growing up, I always had music surrounding me. But because of that, I actually was always against doing music because I didn’t want to be, like, I actually really didn’t want to be a nepo baby. I was scared of doing the expected and scared of kind of stealing other people’s opportunities. But then after a while, I realized there’s so many facets of music, and I love the songwriting part, so I feel, in the future, I really want to utilize that and write for Indonesian artists. I think that’d be super fun. I think in the past, you either had to be a nepo baby like me, or you had to be relatively well off. But now also the English language is a lot easier to learn. Now that you have the internet and stuff. So people from all over Indonesia are able to make the music they want to make. Whereas before, I think before we had Ableton and Logic and all these softwares you can get for yourself, you had to know people to make music. So I just think there was always talent there. It’s just that now a talent can come from anywhere, as Ratatouille said. And yeah, it actually just happened by accident. I wasn’t necessarily trying to be a singer my whole life. And my mom and dad never expected that from me. They were just like, chilling. So that all just kind of happened. I mean, my name is Stephanie Poetri. Poetry is so meant to be.
Was it exciting to perform 88rising’s Head in the Clouds music festival and watch all the Asian talent there?
Of course! I think I’m just excited to watch their set. I think I remember finding 2NE1 during their Come Back Home era and just loving their music. And, you know, obviously G-Dragon has so many amazing songs. So, super excited to watch them. And I’m gonna be respectful. I’m not gonna try to meet them backstage. I think I’m gonna just be a fan from afar. Honestly, I’ve always thought Rich Brian’s sets were amazing. He’s, you know, so good at carrying himself and carrying the whole show, even though he has a bunch of things happening on stage. It’s all on top of his awesome performance. He put so much effort into it. I had rehearsals once right before him. And he spent 10 hours just rehearsing on stage. And I was like, that’s a lot of energy, brother.
Tell us why you wrote “My Hometown is Sinking.”
Yeah, so… It’s just, I feel a lot of people my age, we worry about the future a lot. And part of that is being scared of global warming and, you know, the sea levels rising. It’s insane that my hometown is greatly affected by it. There is part of me that feels guilty for escaping, in a way, even though I don’t. I’m not escaping because of that, but at the end of the day, I’m in America, and I have friends who are constantly worried because their family home might not exist in the the next couple of years. So I’m not writing songs just to write them anymore. I kind of want to have something to say. I just want to write songs that encapsulate what life is like for me, at this point in my life. So that when I’m really old, if I get really old, I can look back and kind of be like, “Oh, this was during this era, and this was during this era.” And I’ll have a couple more serious songs because I think I’m going through a lot of serious stuff. I’m obviously interested in finding ways to talk about the things I care about. It’s just there’s so many nuances and things. It’s a very interesting time right now. Where you want to do the right thing, but you also never know if the right thing is actually the right thing. So we’re all navigating it in our own ways. And I’m trying my best to be as self-aware about everything.
