Singer Yamikani Janet Banda, professionally known as Lady Zamar, is set to release her latest album this coming Friday after a five-year hiatus.
Lady Zamar says everything feels unreal and she has to remind herself that this is her life and she gets to live it.Â
“It is challenging, extremely challenging. For the most part, though, it’s a real career that I get to have, and it allows me to be as open and free as I can be,” she says.
The past few years have been a whirlwind for her and this year she returns with a new album Rainbow. She shares that the journey to Rainbow started around 2020. It was during Covid-19, and she had just released her previous full-length album Monarch which performed extremely well.
“I got back to the drawing board, and I started with a lot of tracking. I wanted to figure out what I wanted to sound like, how I wanted to reinvent myself, trying to deal with drama on social media simultaneously, I needed to do this to be able to tune in my self-awareness. So that was the start.”
“I did a lot of vocal training around this time, looking to find the strengths and weaknesses in my own voice. In 2021 we created an entire album, but it was just not where we wanted it to be, so we started the entire project again.”
Evolution as artist
Lady Zamar believes she has evolved as an artist over the years because she had to undergo several voice operations in the past few years. This added a lot to the challenge of making the album but has resulted in her voice being so much better.
“I think my vocal range on this album will catch the listeners’ ears if I do say so myself. On this album, I’ve tried to create a really great balance with my voice. I’ve played around with some lush and beautiful tones, it goes from husky to angelic, I really feel proud of the versatility I showed with my vocals.”
“As for the writing, my process now and how I articulate myself is so much simpler. There aren’t any double meanings or hidden messages, literally what you hear is what you get.”