Appearing in her first podcast since the death of her rapper boyfriend, Kiernan “AKA: Forbes, Nadia Nakai owned her space and seemed as jovial as ever.
Chatting to Zingah on on his popular podcast, “Choppin It Up With Bhuda T” the “Naaa Meaan” hitmaker spoke of how she rose to heights in her career.
When signed to Cassper Nyovest’s Family Tree music label, she said, “I knew how to humble myself when I needed things from Cass. I knew how to come correct. Monetary value was not always something I needed from Cass.
“I was already running with my brands, already gigging, I was doing fine.
“What I needed was his musical intellect and the places he could put me, and that’s what he gave me. I am so strategic that my creativity needs help.
“I don’t mind asking people for help to make a great song, but I can’t make a great song by myself in my house, so I’ll always have people around that help me build,” shared the award-winning rapper.“
On her decision to leave Family Tree, she said, “I wanted to grow. I wanted to stand alone.
“There was no bad blood, I appreciated everything he had done for me but I really had to just spread my wings. I wanted to stand on my own two feet...I wanted to prove that to myself. I now am at a point where I can trust my own gut...It’s such a moment of freedom.”
About her private family affairs, the rapper, who was born Nadia Dlamini, shared that she was born and bred in South Africa and could not take any credit from Zimbabwean artists.
She disclosed how she recently met her father after three decades at a Spur restaurant in Boksburg after he had reached out to her after media reports following AKA’s death.
Since her parents’ divorce, Nakai’s dad lived between Canada and South Africa, while she lived with her mom during her childhood in South Africa and Kenya.
“It was actually a good meeting, it was wholesome, it was nice. I didn’t have any anger because I feel like I lived a good life with my mom... I think I just wanted to meet him because there was a lot going on in my life, things were hectic, and I felt like I needed to find myself.
“I also went to Zim to see my gogo. It was part of my healing process.
Speaking about her recent 2am tweets where she said she was “ready to die”, she said that she wasn’t suicidal but just tweeted when she was “drunk and emotional”.
“People read my tweets like I am suicidal, now they need to save her, and it’s not that. I just get to a point where, those demon times, at 2 or 3am, sometimes I just tweet things that I am not supposed to.”
Watch the full podcast.