Lights shine onto sophomore pop-singer Alina Khangura as she begins to sing in front of a vast audience. After a preliminary online video audition, Alina Khangura was one of the ten who moved on to the final round to perform in front of a live audience. Through the exclusive singing competition, dubbed as Sac’s Got Talent, Khangura won the heart of the judges and the competition by singing “Traitor” by Olivia Rodrigo.

Khangura has sung for thousands in local performances as well as Instagram. Her most accomplished video was a cover of “Love Story” by Taylor Swift garnering over 2.3 million views.

Organized and hosted by Del Campo High School, through the non-profit Kids Helping Kids, Sac’s Got Talent is one of the opportunities they provide the community. Khangura was the sole winner of the 2023 Sac’s Got Talent ultimately raising $40,000 for kids with pediatric cancer. 

Khangura’s singing journey started when she was five years old as she sang to her sister and dolls. After a few years, she picked it back up at the age of ten and became more serious by taking private lessons and practicing continuously. 

From playing at local cafes like Fig Tree to opening in the Harris Center, Khangura has performed to a variety of audiences. There’s the Placer County Fair–not to mention when she starred as the character, Dragon, in the musical “Shrek” performed by Granite Bay Theater. Khangura was a freshman then. 

She has gained and attracted a massive social media presence. On Instagram, she has around 24K followers (as of April 2024) and TikTok with around 1000 followers. Posting nearly everyday and collaborations with other youth social media singers like @micahwalkermusic and @tannergrigoli was key to her social media growth. 

“In summer, I posted like one of these videos like in a different location and…captioned it a little differently, added some different hashtags and like, it got 400k views, which is crazy, like from 300, 600 views to like, all the way 400k,” Khangura said.

Taking inspiration from pop artists- Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Tate McCrae- she has posted many covers of artists. Including her musical capabilities, Khangura can play piano, guitar and a little bit of ukulele. 

Khangura hopes to study business in college and keep music as a side hobby for now, ultimately letting her see whether her music takes off. 

Even though she is a sophomore, she knows that she wants to study business when she goes to college.

“I think I would rather major in something like businesses to help and…support my music,” Khangura said. 

In terms of producing her own music, she has posted clips of her own song and hopes to release something later this year.