Love affair with SONG
USIC is like a metaphor to neo-soul songstress Moneoa Nastashia Khodo.
At 23 and with one album under her belt, Moneoa is a newborn in the music industry.
But she has announced her entry with a bang.
Her album, Coming From Going To, has landed her three Metro FM Awards nominations best newcomer, best female and best Afro-pop.
Music is a process for me. It’s like falling in love over and over again.
It’s like giving birth; the moment you see your child for the first time, that’s unforgettable.
Good quality music is a relationship that is constant and beautiful; it never fails you when you let it communicate with you in an emotional way,” says Moneoa.
About her nominations, she beams: I am beyond happiness!”
Her album hit the shelves last year with five of her singles cultivating airwaves across Mzansi.
This is my first album. I’m a newcomer. A lot of people don’t know who I am but they sing along to my songs.
Is this a dream? I ask myself. I want to pinch myself,” she says, astonished.
We meet at the nomination ceremony, where one of her competitors, another newcomer, Berita, is also nominated twice to go head-to-head with her.
It’s hard to catch up with her one moment she’s mingling with other industry players and the next she disappears into thin air.
We finally get time to chat and her chic look is notable.
She is styled in a gorgeous simple turquoise dress, pearl necklace and classy stilettos.
As we take a walk, she tries hard to hide her excitement.
I was told not to expect anything,” she gasps.
I came with no expectations. I came with the mentality that I might not get a nomination.
It is such an unforeseen blessing. I really didn’t expect these tracks of mine, Pretty Disaster, Life, Isibanxa, Take
It Easy, More Than You and
Molo to blow up like this.
It shows that when you do something with desire and passion you are bound to reap good results.
Pretty Disaster was inspired by real life experiences. I fell for a guy who sold me dreams. He had someone else, yet I was so deeply in love.
My heart was chained to this person. I was bound to him in a way that made me feel stuck.
I was in pain and the experiences in this relationship taught me the difference between being a girl and a woman,” she says, with a tinge of sadness in her ordinarily sultry voice.
But she bubbles again as she briefly relates how Rawknait Music opened doors for her to sing and follow her dreams.
I was doing my first year in brand marketing at Vega in 2009 when my manager Songi Styles discovered me.
I immediately dropped out cos I believed I always had a strong connection with music.
It took me three years to work on this album.
No doubt we all want money but I had to take time with my album.
I had to refuse to be classified as just an emerging artist.
My passion about good quality music got me here today.
I sacrificed so much, including dropping out of college.
I even fought with my mom and family to live my dream. I wasn’t backing down. My mom never gave up on me. She was beside me always and she is my greatest inspiration,” she says.
All her songs are inspired by personal experiences, such as her upbringing, her difficult relationship with her father and past romantic relationships.
And now that the dust has settled on the nominations, Moneoa is back in the studio singing her lungs out on a new project she is doing with Culoe de Song.
The Metro FM Awards take place in Durban on February 23.