Rumbidzai Mhlanga, Sunday Life Reporter
Poet and musician Proficiency Cadder, warmly known as Kadder has explored both her talents and has decided she has a stronghold on being a musician.
The 29-year-old female artiste started singing at the age of 14 while staying in Gwanda and got her inspiration from Decibel and later fell in love with being a poet too. The songstress narrated how she became a musician and what inspires her.
“I started singing at the age of 14. There was no studio in Gwanda where I was staying so I could not record yet I used to tell my friends that they would one day see me on television. Initially I was inspired by Decibel’s song Chido. It was so good, it made me want to sing too. However, now I am inspired by the ghetto, the challenges and strengths of its youth, I then released my first album when I was 19,” said Kaddar.
Kaddar, who started off as a musician then ventured to poetry has decided to come back to the music industry.
“I did not really leave the music industry, I have a passion for poetry too so when Starbrite came to Bulawayo I took the opportunity to develop myself as a writer and poetry chanter. But even though I was at Starbrite I used to perform at music functions such as the Jam Sessions. While working on being a poet I got the chance to perform alongside Cont Mhlanga at the Zimbabwe International Poetry Festival 2016 in Harare which was a good experience and made me grow in the art industry in some way.
“Doing both poetry and music made me realise that I have a stronghold on music. I am good at performing musically and that also helps me in my poetry performance but I have a larger following in music but the experience I had during Starbrite helped a lot musically in terms of earning from music, before I used to do free shows most of the times so as to market myself but Starbrite taught me about sales, that is how to make money through art. I learnt about branding and how to keep adding value to my name,” she added
The artiste shared with this publication her achievements.
“I won an award for the Most Upcoming Artist at the Hustlers Road to Fame in 2009. I am a Starbrite 2016 Poetry finalist, former Amakorokoza actress and I recently featured in a ZTV drama titled Golden Belt as a gold panner.
“I already have two albums; Planet Kadder Volume 1 with six tracks Kulendawo, Jika majika, Touch the floor, Thul’ungakhali, Emafletsin’yarokka and Planet Kadder Volume 2 with five tracks Dlala Bek’bone, Phez’kwamanzi, Sukuma, Toleka, Aziwe-ke. I’m currently working on my single titled Kikirikiki which will be part of my third album.
“I titled my upcoming album Kadderlicious because most people usually mistake Kadder for a guy so this is a way of redirecting them and revealing more of my feminine side instead of the hard-core kwaito artiste they know,” she continued.