Kenyan singer off to top world academy
FILE | NATION
Karen Lucas also known as Kaz, during a past performance
What you need to know:
American Musical and Drama Academy
- AMDA website, www.amda.edu describes the school as America’s Premier College of the Performing Arts that offers students the once in a lifetime opportunity to experience world-renowned conservatory training in the two artistic capitals of the world.
- Its sister campus is in Los Angeles, California near Hollywood, the famous American centre of movie studios.
- For over 45 years, AMDA has excelled in its singular mission to train aspiring artists toward success in the extraordinary world of entertainment, reads a statement on the school’s website.
- Broadway, also known as Broadway Theatre, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of 40 professional theatres with 500 seats or more in the Theatre District, New York and in Lincoln Centre, in Manhattan, New York City.
It’s said that Broadway will give anyone a cup of coffee and a sandwich, but it demands persistence from those who go after the big stakes.
Now Kenya’s most controversial singer and self-made drama queen Karen Lucas aka Kaz is heading to Broadway in New York, usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.
“I am headed for further studies. I’ll be going to AMDA (The American Musical and Dramatic Academy). The course will take two years and after that are huge prospects of me being on Broadway,” Kaz told the Nation.
Ardent fans will bid her an emotional farewell tomorrow at the Tribe Hotel, Village Market in an event dubbed Kwaheri Kaz slated to begins at 6.30 pm.
Queen of England
Kaz is a familiar figure in Kenya’s music industry. She was born in 1983 and launched her career at age of 14. She was educated at St. Andrews, Turi and Braeside — both international curriculum schools. She passed Grade 1 piano exam so well, that Her Majesty the Queen of England signed her certificate.
The petite singer would go on to represent Kenya at the Project Fame 2004 in South Africa and two years later win a trophy at the prestigious All African Kora Music Awards in Durban, making her one of the youngest winners at the event billed to be Africa’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards.
She told a BBC journalist then: ‘“They call your name, you go up and you get the award and you go back to your table and you are like ‘Did that really happen?’ It’s unreal. It still hasn’t sunk in yet.”
She has since produced three albums including Somin, the one we were looking, K-A-Z and The Naked Truth is. She has also hosted TV musical shows including Afrodizzia on Citizen TV.
Kaz also hosted one of the hottest karaoke nights in Nairobi at The Intercontinental, and later at Zanze Bar. She had just launched a monthly entertainment event dubbed ASAP at Karen Country Lodge, an event show casing local talent from visual arts, poetry and the local music scene.
Despite her truly chequered music career, Kaz is not new to controversy. She is said to have told off fellow contestant Didge Nyatome at the Project Fame where she was infamous for her quirky antics which included kissing.
However, her vivacious, charismatic stage presence, and at times mesmerising soulful vocals would come to her aid, impressing the panel of judges, and subsequently ensuring her stay in the house despite her constant “diva attitude” that did not go down well with viewers.
She was one of the last contestants to be voted out of the house in a tough competition won by Lindiwe Alam, a Zambian.
Towards the end of 2007, Kaz would fall prey to the wild side of the Internet when her supposedly nude pictures did the rounds, prompting her pleas to those responsible to stop. Showbiz insiders believe, the nude pictures accelerated Kaz’s album sales and raised her profile. Kaz maintains it was an act of cowardice by a jilted lover.
After a two-year hiatus, travelling and doing charity work, Kaz spoke exclusively to the Nation: “There will always be people around trying to bring me down.”
