My name is Zipporah, or as my fans call me “Zipporah Zipporah”. I was born and raised for a little bit in Croydon (England), until I went to live with my mother in a small Caribbean Island called Anguilla. I returned to England years later for University and now reside in Manchester.
I’ve always loved singing. From time I was a little girl, I would put on shows for my family members, teachers, really anyone who cared to listen to a little girl sing her heart out. Music is like an escape to me. An escape from a bad day, bad times or bad thoughts, I’ve always found solace in it.
I first started writing songs by writing poetry. My poems conveyed the emotion I was trying to evoke so well, often times they would get published in books and magazines. The first song I wrote was about an ex-love that betrayed my trust. Oh how we’ve all been there.
I remember it like yesterday. It was around 2 o’clock in the morning and I was upset after some information I had found out. But just listening to songs wasn’t going to cut it. I needed to get my words out, to let the world know how I felt. I found an instrumental on YouTube and got to writing.
That night birthed my career as a singer. I went to the studio, recorded the song, released it, and to my surprise everyone on my island loved it. Over 1,000 listens in just a couple of days. It was the start of something bigger that I hadn’t realized at the time. It was the start of pursuing my dream.
Every song I write comes from a real experience. Whether it be something I’m going through or what someone close to me is going through. I do this because I want my messages to be real. I want people to be able to connect with my music.
There’s something so special about feeling validated. To hear that someone went through what you are going through and they came out all right, gives you the reassurance that you’re going to come out all right too. It allows you to learn from those lessons and most importantly heal.
This is what my latest single “Loving Me” is about. Healing. We walk around with so many scars that are unhealed. Scars from our childhood traumas, hurt from the wrongdoings of our parents, wounds left from broken friendships and scabs of lost relationships.
Sometimes we don’t even realize that we are still holding onto things that hurt us in the past. This song is about encouraging healing. Acknowledging those scars and growing and moving on to do better things.
To break the song down verse by verse, the first verse highlights giving too much of yourself away to people who don’t deserve you and getting lost in the drama and confusion surrounding you. The second verse is about understanding your worth and how much you have to give to the world.
It emphasizes that you should stop pleasing others at the expense of yourself. It calls the listener to stop detracting their self-love and settling for a situation or relationship that is not benefiting them. The words “Hakuna Zaidi” are Swahili and mean no more. No more of this negative behavior. It’s time to start loving you, the real you.
I chose elements of the Swahili language as well because so many of my listeners are from Tanzania and they’re always trying to teach me things to say in their language. So, in a way I wanted to give back to them to show my appreciation.
For the music video, I wanted it to be simple, classy, and beautiful. Normally, I have a lot of seduction and femme fatale energy in my videos, which I absolutely love creating, but I didn’t want that to take away from the message in the song.
I wanted a beautiful video to capture how beautiful it is to love yourself, and then the idea hit me “I should showcase my island”. Unfortunately, because we shot the video around Covid times, shooting in my island was a bit difficult because of the Covid restrictions.
So instead, we had to opt for a neighboring sister island, St. Maarten, which still allowed me to capture the beauty of the Caribbean. Although I definitely will be returning to my island to shoot another video.
I’m very meticulous when it comes to my music videos as well. So many persons think it’s the same director shooting because the videos all have the same essence. But I always use different directors. It’s my creative director however, that is always the same, because it’s me.
I love putting the script together and choosing the locations, outfits, hairstyles and cast for my videos. I’m fully hands on in all of my projects and although it’s a lot of work and pressure, I love the end result.
The song is produced, mixed and mastered by Dizzell Bueno, who is definitely one of my favorite engineers having worked with him on several projects. He’s worked with some of the most renowned artists in the Caribbean like Shenseea.
I’ve worked with a lot of different producers, but whenever I work with Dizzell we create magic. He understands the tones in my voice and knows which instruments to use to amplify them. We’ve created so many hits together and I can’t wait to share them with the world.
To all my fans I just want to take this opportunity to give you all my love and thank you for continuously believing in me. I know I have the talent, and with hard work and dedication, I know I’ll make a difference in this industry.
Watch the video for “Loving Me” here!
