Factory78 caught up with Habida from Kenya during Silvastones “TRANSITIONS LIVE, TheTransitionsEP, in London, She talked about her first time making music with Silvastone, how he pushed her to make better music! She also gave us her family history, born in Kenya and studied in United States. She signed to a record label in South Africa. She also mentioned doing collaborations with UK artists and Nigerian artists as well.
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, this twenty something gem has taken the road less traveled to this point in her budding career. Sometimes, life presents forks in the road. Only the dedicated and determined can converge the two disparate pathways into one lane.
In her hometown, Habida was involved in a small community-acting troupe for a number of years, which further advanced her love for creativity and acting. She also found time to model for the internationally renowned African agency, Kiko Romeo. Thoughts of pursuing her dramatic studies grew, so much so, that in 1998 she made the choice to leave the comforts of her home and study drama abroad, in London, at Lewisham College. Even though she then found herself with two outlets to channel her energy (modeling and acting), her creativity was boundless and it just didn’t seem to be enough.
Habida’s love for three decades of soul (60-80s) tugged at her spirit. Soon, she found herself trading much needed sleep for extra time writing poetry (which later became the seeds to her self written songs) and taking her singing talent to another level. As one could surmise, she decided to dedicate her time to the written word as well as song compositions, recording a 6-song demo in the spring of 2003. Not one to be complacent, she searched for a way to couple and excel in her two loves, theatre and music.
She then decided to move to Atlanta, the heart of soul and R&B, where she then continued in her path towards musicianship. She studied at Kennesaw State University where she attained a degree in musical theatre. With this under her belt she recorded several tracks with a number of production houses looking for the right deal, wrote and stared in a soap opera as a lead role as well as worked in several TV shows as an extra. She kept up her modeling career as a source of income as well.