Meet the Talent360 finalists

The third finalist of the Talent360 competition I would like to introduce is Razia.

Razia is 22 years old and a finalist for the music category in the talent360-competition. She won the semi-finals in Cloetesville. Razia was born and raised in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch. Razia started singing when she was very young. “But when I started singing for my friends, I was very little, everyone started telling me ‘no man that is not good singing’. At that age you listen to anything that is anybody saying.” So Razia did no longer sing for her friends or anyone else.

However, many years later, in Grade 7, Razia got an assignment at school. For this assignment all students had to choose any idol and write about this person. Razia chose Mariah Carey, because she liked her singing and always wanted to be like her. When Razia sang a part of a song of Mariah Carey at the end of her short presentation, Razia’s teacher recognized how special and beautiful she was singing. The rest of the day Razia had to repeat her song for everyone.

One year later Razia went to high school. Now knowing that she was or is a good singer she started participating in the Miss Valentine show and Miss Cloetesville show at high school. She took part in every show or competition in Cloetesville and at high school. When she was 14 years old she had already performed at several auditions for country-wide competitions.

At the age of 14 Razia took part in the South African competition of Performing Arts in Johannesburg. Her mom and brother went with her, she won several golden medals and thus went through to the next round of the competition. Unfortunately, this part of the competition would take place in Los Angeles, her family didn’t have enough money to accommodate themselves for the competition and didn’t want Razia to go alone all the way to the United States. And thus she missed her chance. According to her this is “fine”, but “The only thing that breaks my heart a little bit, is that I have never had recognition for what I am doing.”

Despite Razia’s long history as singer, she never had a professional training. “At the moment people tell me that I am good, but I don’t know how good I am, because I have never been for training. No one told me that what I am doing is right or what I am doing is wrong.” And this… this is also where Razia dreams of: “I would like to have a good job, where I can earn, not a lot of money, but enough money to make a living. Enough money to, when I need something I must able to go and get it, I don’t want to… I just wanna be well off. For myself I want, in my singing career I would like to achieve my dream, one day be able to have a CD, I would like to have a music video. But my main goal is to have personal vocal training. So at the end of the day, I can be a professional singer”