A 9-year-old Dami Im stepped off a plane and onto the Brisbane Airport tarmac, suitcase in hand and unable to speak a word of English.
The radiant south-east Queensland sun baked into her memory.
It was her first day in Australia. The start of the rest of her life.
Now 36, the former Daisy Hill school girl has reached the peak of Australian music, topping charts, dominating the small screen, and representing the country in the world’s biggest singing competition.
But it’s away from the spotlight where Ms Im often shines brightest – as a mum, a wife, and fiercely independent artist.
These days, she juggles life as a touring musician with the duties of raising a toddler and a four-month-old baby.
She may be performing to sold-out audiences at night, but when her 3-year-old is home sick from kindy, it’s all hands on deck.
Ms Im emigrated to Australia from South Korea in the late 1990s. Her parents dreamed of more opportunities for her and her brother, though the reality meant sacrifices – one parent caring for the kids here in Australia, while the other stayed in Korea to work.
Like many young migrants suddenly immersed in a foreign culture, Ms Im learned English by studying hard, watching television, and piecing together conversations.
But she also had an unlikely tutor: the Spice Girls.
Music was her world, and it was the late 90s, so it makes sense she turned to Scary Spice for guidance.
That was until she learned the hard way that while the Spice Girls were pop icons, they weren’t exactly grammar teachers.
It turns out the word “gonna” doesn’t hold up in a school essay.
Her first memories of Australia remain vivid: the summer sun and swimming in the pool with her cousins, who she lived with when she first arrived.
“I thought it was paradise,” Ms Im recalled.
Then came school.
“That was different – not knowing the language and trying to figure out how to exist as a kid. Blending in and trying to do that was tricky, but I had music.”
She got her first taste of stardom in primary school when she played piano for her peers at an assembly.
“I felt like I found something that set me apart – something that I loved. So that became my identity.”
It wasn’t until her teenage years that Ms Im took to the microphone and unlocked the instrument that would become her future.
In her teenage years, as a student at John Paul College, the piano gave way to the microphone. She turned once again to the Spice Girls for help.
Alone in her bedroom, she would obsessively record herself singing the girlband’s songs on her computer, replaying and rerecording each line until it sounded right.
It’s a practice Ms Im still swears by.
“I think the best way to learn, even now, is by just recording yourself. It tells you so much, and it doesn’t lie.”
It was this dedication that carried Ms Im through a Bachelor of Music at the University of Queensland, a Masters in Contemporary Voice at Griffith University, gigging across South Korea, and then onto the fifth season of X-Factor Australia in 2013, which ultimately propelled her into stardom.
She received a wave of support from her alma mater and the rest of Logan, who were cheering her on through the TV screen.
She stunned the nation, winning the competition and a deal with Sony Music Australia.
The country watched on as Ms Im’s success flourished in the years that followed, with high-charting releases, her own base of fans known as The Dami Army, and in 2016 she placed second in the Eurovision song contest.
It’s the highest an Australian has ever performed in the competition – before or since.
To this day, she says the feat is most intense thing she has ever done. She says the opportunity was a second wind – it gave her the adrenaline she needed to persist through the fickle and often challenging music scene.
But with the highs come the lows. After several years under a major label, Ms Im made the bold decision to walk away from Sony.
She describes it now as “the best decision”, allowing her to pursue the music she wanted to make on her own terms.
Through it all, Ms Im always called Logan home.
The cultures, the diverse people, the food – she remembers it all fondly.
It was only a few years ago that Ms Im and her family packed up from their Daisy Hill home and moved closer to the airport, making everyday life just a little easier for the touring musician.
Also holding Ms Im’s hand through it all has been her husband, Noah Kim, who she met as a child at a Korean church in Brisbane and later married in 2012.
“It’s special to be able to share this whole experience with someone else – there have been lots of ups and lots of downs, and he knows all about it. We went through it together,” Ms Im said.
“I don’t think I could have survived in this industry, in this line of work, without my husband by my side.”
Together, they share two children – Harry, who is the oldest, and Rory, who was born in June.
“I have always been very career driven, so I was afraid of what would happen if I had a family. And here I am with two kids,” Ms Im said.
“I’m still able to make my music, work and perform, but then I have a lovely family I can come home to.”
After the birth of Rory, Ms Im dove straight back into recording and doing live shows.
Her next single, O Holy Night, will be released on 7 November. Just last month she unveiled Bubble, a jazz-inflected track accompanied by a tour that is quickly selling out.
For Im, the song represents a “full-circle moment” – a return to the musical roots that first shaped her.
