Music aficionado David Roman, who performs under the name and style artistDaya, said music has been a part of him for as long as he can remember, so much so that he uses his talent to teach other musicians the power of songwriting.
“Growing up as a child, music has always been part of the spaces in the household, at school, at church, and even in the community at large, to the extent that I was under the impression that everybody could sing only to realise in my late teens that it is not the case,” said Roman.
Roman is a singer-songwriter guitarist, producer, and recording artist who’s founded a music production company with related services, more specifically the Gospel genre, Bl3sid Productions.
“My music journey started in church as part of the music ministry. I became part and a founding member of the now-defunct band Hope 4 U. I later became the leader of this band. The band Hope 4 U toured to other provinces like Northern, Eastern and Western Cape. This band in the early 2000s performed regularly at festivals like Macufe, Vuka, Rose Garden Concert, and the like.”
For the songwriter, writing entails the understanding that there are formulas and structures to songs that you need to know, understand, and apply to write a good song, and as the general state of affairs in the South African music industry currently has a lack of good songwriters, he said that musicians need to “understand that owning and exercising control of your own created works is of paramount importance to make it in the music industry. Industry leaders will accept or reject a song based on the above. A good song starts with structure, lyrical content, performance and production, and the benevolence of the gods that the audience will accept it,” Roman explained.
It is for this reason that he hosted workshops with local musicians and artists to unpack some of these challenges.
To showcase the success of the workshops, Bl3sid Productions will present a production Brothers of Praise! on 29 September at the André Huguenet Theatre in Bloemfontein.
For more info or tickets, please contact 072-386- 3377. “The line-up of artists is a true reflection of our rainbow nation. There are songs written in English, isiXhosa, Sesotho, and Afrikaans,” concluded Roman.
Gypseenia Lion
gypseenia@mahareng.co.za
