Fresh off of dropping her debut album titled Nadia Naked, Nadia Nakai joined The Pristine Queen on The Element and chopped it up about what being naked has actually been like.
The 17-track album took 2-and-a-half years to put together and features Khuli Chana, Cassper Nyovest, Tshego, Lady Zamar, Kwesta, Sio, Ycee and Stefflon Don.
Nadia Naked gives fans an inside look at her life, from the way she felt growing up without her father, break-ups, the industry and more.
“I feel like people don’t know about me and what I’m about and what I was trying to do with the things that I did and how I felt about certain things…”, she said as she explained why she took a “bares all” approach and the project’s title.
“In the beginning of your career, I think it’s very hard to come out automatically talking about your truth because you haven’t grown with your fans.”
One of the most personal gems shared through the album was her having grown up without her father and navigating that while trying not to alienate her mother.
“I’ve never felt broken, I’ve never felt like I missed anything in my life. I think my mom raised me and she was so focused on me so I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. The only thing was that I didn’t feel like I could talk freely talk to my mom about him,” she said.
“And, not to talk about him because he’s something I missed in my life but just to understand what happened. You don’t want to bring up your dad as a kid sometimes because you think you’re going to offend your mom; and make her feel like she’s not doing enough and that if your dad was here it would be better,” she added.
She detailed her feelings and experience on a song called Amai, which means mother in Shona – a song that she says she was nervous to have her mom hear for the first time. Despite her having grown up without her dad, she said that she did not grow up wanting for anything.
“I know what a good man looks like – I don’t think I needed my father figure to know what a good man looks like and how he should treat a woman and what should happen in a family dynamic. I honestly don’t feel like I’m broken in any way – my mom raised me to be really strong and I’m very grateful for the way she did things… but we still need to have that conversation properly and really to understand exactly what was going on at that time”.
Bragga, as she’s also known, has also been synonymous with being unapologetically sexy, feisty and not worrying too much about how people expect her to behave, and present herself as a woman.
“I realised that women put themselves in boxes. And, I [didn’t] understand why. Then I realised it was because of the conversations that women are having with their fathers, their husbands or their boyfriends. They’re taught to dim their light,” she said as she unpacked her sexy image, in light of her recent Castle Lite Unlocks outfit inspired by her latest Nadia Nakai x Redbat range with Sportscene.
“I want women to be confident in themselves and not put themselves in boxes. Don’t ever feel that you can’t do what you want because people say you have to be this certain type of individual”.
For more on the conversation, listen here:
The Element is a Hip Hop show presented by The Pristine Queen, Azizzar and airs on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 7-9PM and on Saturdays from 3-5PM on Massiv Metro, all #ForTheLoveOfHipHop.
