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You probably know her from the hype she got after doing a Swahili rendition for Runtown’s ‘Mad Over You’ last year. 28-year-old Lucia Goodwin aka Ninny Zerah, a Kenyan-born singer, model and sexologist who has been living in Australia is back home with a mission.
When Ninny Zerah released her own version for Runtown’s Mad Over You last year, few had heard of her.
She came out as a solid new talent, hitting the keys with her sweet voice and slaying with killer look as the next big thing. Quite a charm, Ninny is easy-going and it does not take her long to relax as she settles down for this interview. Her manager by her side, she sits calmly as we introduce ourselves. She takes the cue with a ‘thank you for having me’, a fleeting thin smile across her lips.
“You are so many things in one…a musician, model, entrepreneur, personal trainer…How should we refer to you as?” we ask.
After a short pose, she responds: “My strength is in all those, so refer to me anyway you wish. Besides, I am also a sexologist and I run my wine brands as a business lady”.
“Sexologist?”
“Yes, I studied psychology and I have a little background in medicine so I have been counselling couples who have sex issues or let’s just say whoever needs such services. It is a very interesting field,” she says. At 28, Ninny Zerah, an adventurer who loves globetrotting, has lived in different parts of the world. Born in Kenya, Ninny moved to Australia for her studies and fell in love with the country and decided to venture into business, besides furthering her music career.
“I’m a graduate of Kranz International in South Australia. I have a business background. I have always had passion for music as I come from a family where we all grew up loving music. It is all we knew,” she says.
Ninny, the third born in her family, recalls how they would gather in the living room at night to sing. Her brother would play the saxophone or the piano and she would sing. Later on after she moved to Australia, she enrolled at the Australian Company Arts and later on WEA adult, learning to play drums and guitar.
“Having come from a musical background, I would say I have been singing for as long as I can recall. I recall singing to Mary Mary’s tunes back in church where I also formed an accapella group that I had to leave after moving to Australia,” she recalls. However, while in Australia, she took a break from music to complete her studies and support her siblings who were still in school. And come 2012, she ended her hiatus, joining Planet Band in Australia. This is when she started music professionally.
“I had entered a number of music competitions like the Tusker Project Fame where I went through the preliminary stages and also, I had learned how to play a few music instruments but it was after joining Planet Band that I started seeing music from a different perspective,” Ninny, who has since featured in Kidum’s Hadi Kifo besides recording her own projects, says.
“I would say that as much as I am talented, I haven’t had a very good management team to get my talent out there. I have now identified people I can work with and feel it’s about time I get this act going.”
She is not just a beautiful face with a good voice. She runs her own wine brand, Zhiro. It is for this reason that she has been travelling across the world.
“I have good taste buds and I have been in this wine business for a while now. It is the one reason I am here to market the brand and open up my business. I also want to get my fans here to know me. I have a good feeling that I am on the edge of something new,” she affirms.
