Uniquah
Born Ntombenhle Gumede in the South Coast of Durban, Uniquah had quiet a tough time growing up, having lost her mom at a very young age, well she doesn't speak much of her dad as she has vague memories of him to say the least he was none existent in her life whatsoever and being forced to spend most of her childhood days surrounded by strangers at a church orphanage in Yeoville North of Johannesburg, it's through this foster care that she found brotherhood and sisterhood in the comfort of strangers.
When a child has no proper guidance and a stable or proper home things can get out of hand and that had quite an influence in how this R&B vocalist grew up "there was a time in my life where I had lost direction of where I was going and I just lived a wild and dangerous lifestyle" says this dazzling songstress, confusion and peer pressure lead her to bad decisions which she later found herself with child in an unhealthy, abusive and unstable relationship, depression took over but through these tough times she discovered her ability to pen down her emotions and transform her experiences into music because that was the only way she felt she could let the world know what she was going through, that was the one way she could escape the reality her life was, music became the mothers comfort she grew up without, music gave her peace, it gave her courage to fight to free herself from these emotional chains she found herself in.
As music became her only friend that brightened her up and now with a son to look after Uniquah started looking at taking up music as a profession, with the little she got from her waitress job she found a way to invest both in her music, provide for her son and unemployed grandmother "i kinda felt it to be very selfish to keep the voice I had and my ability to compose music to myself, hence I then started singing in front of crowd at School, Church, Talent shows, parties, funerals and local community events".
During all this Time Uniquah had been doing house music a genre she was not entirely sure about until the R&B bug got her and she the decided to try the Hip hop and RnB genre, being a woman in male dominated industry she tried hard to keep a professional approach even though it proved to be quite a difficult mission as every door she knocked on was met up with a male who would try to take advantage of her femininity but she stood firm and found a way to work around those challenges and we can say it really turned out to work for her because through that she met the likes of Zakwe who approved of her music and later was a video vixen on one song he was featured on by another artist, soon she was followed by a number of big artists in the game and made more appearances in music videos like Dreamteam's shandis video.
Soon she was followed by the likes of Zakwe, Kwesta, HHP, Sean Pages, Yanga, Dr Malinga to name a few Local Stars and Bianca Bryan Americas got talent winner, R Wash, and international artist like Dj Kem Berneth including Trey Songs on Twitter.
She then found a formula to have her name known by more of the right influential people such as Radio Stations personalities, DJs, producers and event promoters.
Although her career has been a short journey, Uniquah has released 2 Pop RnB songs 1 of which she worked on with 1 of Durban's biggest and well known Hip hop producer (Dumisani) of Magudu music a promo music video which is up for streaming on YouTube an official music video due to drop soon which features Breeze "The Trend Setter" she has really done quiet well for herself and certainly her mother would be proud of the woman she has become and she plans to continue doing what saved her from her broken self and hopes it inspires all those necessary and to have her story become a template to all struggling kids out there.
