CHARDANAI

Welcome to Chardanai’s Myspace
Born May 18th and raised in London by parents of Nigerian, Bajan & Lucian, heritage Chardanai always had a keen interest in music composing and singing.
In 1991, her musical career began, with her first taste of violin, then after a blistering experience, she turned her energy to a more suitable feel of the piano. She also got a feel with a natural instrument, the Steel Pan and it was not long before she soon had a taste for this by rearranging hymns and making small songs.
While at primary school as confident as she was, Chardanai had the skills to teach her classmates songs to play together on various instruments, composing and arranging all the elements of the song with the bass and the melody, she would also go on to perform in assembly and church festivals for the school.
Musical influences that were on constant rotation within the household ranged from Fela Kuti, Zairian Music, Disco, Rare Groove, Calypso, Old Dancehall, Lovers Rock, Reggae to James Brown (Funk).
During secondary School Chardanai was quick off the mark, she put a little group together, Just before celebrating her 13th birthday, she was given a golden opportunity to record a song for the first time and made her first song called “Its Freaky”. As if that wasn’t enough, one of her group member’s managed to get them a first show at the well known Hackney Empire, which was also to be televised on Channel 4.
By the age of 14, she was setting herself high standards and goals by enrolling herself on various music technology courses. Due to the fact that these were usually adult course, they turned her down but her mother was willing to see her star make something of herself and paid in full. At the end of course, she received her first certificate in music technology. This was the turning point in Chardanai’s musical career where she learnt computer production, using programs such as Logic, Cubase and Reason to a basic level.
A few years past on in her school years and she was asked to perform a hymn in assembly. She had teamed up with another group formed with four girls, and decided put her own flavor in by taking the hymn lyrics home and re-arranging the melody and style. She came up with something paying close attention to intricacy and precision. being quite the perfectionist the performance was a success.Two months later she attended a gospel work shop run by LCGC, a very big UK gospel choir, she showed them what they had done and they loved it and put them in a show pronto, in the prestigious Hammersmith Town hall.
In 2001 Chardanai decided to enter her new group into a London competition for soloists and groups. Her and the girls didn’t have a name so they just called ourselves "AZILE" which was one of band members name spelt backwards. They entered in to the West London heat they won then went on to the West London final and also won. She recalls that night by saying: “I have to say though we were HOT!!! I think what I enjoyed the most was that all the songs were all produced and arranged by us and were all R’n’B gospel, we got the crowd going”.
By the end of Chardanai’s secondary school career she had been chosen to attend a Summer school of excellence at the Royal College of music, this was a very influential experience that intrduced to her to an even wider variety of genres, instrumentation and compositional styles, including Gamalan, far eastern music, south american music and west african music.
By the time Chardanai reached the end of her college years, she had successfully managed to gain a National Diploma in music technology Distinction, From that she went on to do gain a Higher National Certificate in Music Technology Production.
Chardanai has always had a soft spot for music from early days but she has had a big passion for Soca music, Calypso & Zouk. Through out the years she had been writing raw materials and doing small rhythms but she never really kept up with the Soca scene. From about 2002, she began to work on Soca and slightly Zouk, orientated beats, being so used to doing R&B, Gospel and Jazz she didn’t feel she had the skills to take on another music genre with a totally different vibe.
Over the years leading up to now, Chardanai has gained a lot of feedback about her ideas and talent, which has pushed her forward and made her want to do this with a vengeance. She believes she has the ability to learn more and the support to really gain acknowledgment and success. At the moment she is currently working on various musical projects and collaborations.
So listen out for Chardanai’s next big tune............