Amanda Precious Induna was born in the year 2000 in Harare capital city of Zimbabwe. She lived there with her family until the year 2015 when she moved to Masvingo where she was attending school. Amanda has three siblings, two brothers and a sister. Growing up she spent most of her high school at a Catholic boarding school, Gokomere High away from home and this played a major role in shaping the person she is today.
Growing up, she was not much of a singer but accidentally ended up in a music class at the beginning of 2013 where she joined the high school choir which was compulsory to all music students. Amanda disliked music class because to her nothing made sense and also someparts of the syllabus were not in English, hence tried to switch classes, to join the Agriculture class but did not make it. Being in the music academy, she thought music was not much of a challenge until itwas until the end of 2013 when she had to prepare for a final practical exam where she had to sing. From then, in her small society, Gokomere School, she became their very own Whitney Houston, and then developed by taking vocal and mbira lessons in addition to music theory.
Due to financial constraints, she could not continue at the music school. Also the separation of her parents contributed and she moved to Bulawayo where she finished the rest of high school on scholarship where she could not continue with music at advanced level because the scholarship was only being granted to science students with remarkable results. This was far from what she wanted but at the same time could not be ungrateful and discard the opportunity.She later learnt of a place, Zimbabwe Academy of Music in 2017. There, she hoped to enroll full time and drop out of her advanced level science class.She was caught in between since she did not want to drop out of school completely,but was droppingone class to take up another. She could not make it because music education is very scarce and expensive hence her mother as the breadwinner could not afford it all.That, however was not enough to keep her in class. At form five she got a job as an assistant to a choral coach, who would send her to run his errands where he would have contracts with schools to teach music. So, she began to skip classes to go and teach music. She did not lie about it to her mother and she understood. Unfortunately, she was conned and never got paid. She was hurt as she had hoped to use the money to enroll at the music academy, at the same time she was way too far behind at school. Her sister visited, gave her some money. . She remember thinking what to do with it since it was just five dollars short for her to register for the exams, but she would ask how she would register for exams without attending any music classes?
Her mother was very supportive at this point, more than ever. She did not really understand what it was that Amanda intended to achieve but Amanda was working so hard that it must have broken her heart. So, she advised that she took the opportunity and register to write exams and she would help her raise the rest of the money needed. She was to take a break from high school classes to study for her big music exam. She wrote the exams in 2017, with little confidence of course because she had not had a tutor. Amanda attained an internationally accredited certificate in music theory with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) which enabled her to skip right to university to study musicology, which is what she really wanted more than anything at that time.
Music education is not as developed and accessible in Zimbabwe as might be in other countries. As a result, music theory and practical are taught from scratch at university, which is a good thing truly, except her case since she had already been doing it five years prior to her first year at university. So, she was not as busy as she thought she would be. She got bored and frustrated. It was not as fun as she thought. This is how she ended up teaching music in primary schools as a freelancer and enlisting in talent search shows.
In the year 2019, she landed at StarBrite and made it into the Grand Finale and that was not her first time in a competition. Her past experience in competitions before Starbrite made her to become so rigid in her performances and Starbrite noticed! Before Starbrite, she did not want to deviate from what she called her norm, because she believed in trying new styles, mistakes are bound to be made and that was her biggest fear. Mistakes are costly, or so I thought.
She said,“what I learnt is that if simplicity is your home, which is alright. Taking a walk outside of your home, but close to your home, will not kill you because you can always come back home. Staying inside your home for the longest time is safe, but monotonous. Monotony kills. This is what I walked away with. This is what I am using now. I am aiming at becoming a successful African artist who is not only talented but skilled in grooming others who wish to walk the same path.
