It was an early morning message blast I received from my ‘date’ for this week to all her friends on her blackberry messenger some weeks ago, to tell us she had been selected to be a participant in The Voice Switzerland! “Whaaat?!!!” I exclaimed and sent her a message “For real? Glory, are you serious?” “Yess!!!…I am so excited about this” she responded. From then on, I constantly followed up on results and was glad to know that though the show is over, she made it to the finals and has successfully created her own power band, called Glory Bosnjak & band.
The Voice is an American reality television singing competition based on the original The Voice of Holland. The concept of the series is to find new singing talent (solo or duets) contested by aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. The winner is determined by viewers by voting through telephone, internet, SMS text, iTunes store purchases of artists’ performances and so on. The series employs a panel of four coaches who critique the artists’ performances. Each coach guides their teams of selected artists through the remainder of the season. They also compete to ensure that their act wins the competition, thus making them the winning coach. The Voice has been replicated in The UK, Italy, Thailand, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Switzerland to mention a few.
Glory Bosnjak, a finalist at The Voice Switzerland is my date for this week. She is a young artist and entertainer known by her fans and friends as a soul diva, R&B and pop singer. From an early age of eight, she started music in church and later went on working on several studio productions and has enchanted her audience at concerts, events, open air shows, weddings, clubs, and private events. One of her biggest shows in Africa-Nigeria was opening for one of the most successful American rappers, Rick Ross.
She writes her own songs and also creates soulful house tracks. Glory has always known what she wants and has since been dedicated in mastering her natural talent from God. Her deep soul-mezzo-soprano voice has kept her dream, on becoming a successful black artist and a role model.
Inspired by Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and Michael Jackson as well as many other great artists, in 2012, Glory recorded her first single called , ‘hold my own’, and released a video with the single. The song was produced in Switzerland. She later wrote and recorded her own tracks called ‘take me away’, ‘crime of passion’, and ‘give me a light’. These tracks were recorded in Nigeria by a talented producer called Super-Soniq.
Growing up, Glory’s inspiration was the quest for success, “it was never easy, nothing comes easy in life, and one thing I know for sure at my age, failure is not an option. Hard work and motivation can get you far; every day is a new chapter.” She tells me.
Now to the crux of the gist, I asked Glory how she got involved with The Voice Switzerland and she shares her experiences. Hear her “My husband registered me for The Voice of Switzerland for the 2013 season. He sent my video from You¬Tube, but by that time, the auditions were already closed. They later contacted me and told me if I was still interested, they would contact me for the next season. All my years of singing I have met a lot of people who just promise and never keep to their words, but to my greatest surprise in 2014, I got an invitation to come to audition for The Voice-Switzerland.”
“For the first time things were looking up, I did my pre-selection auditions, and got called back to participate in the ‘blind’ auditions where I sang one of my favourite songs from Etta James, called “At Last”. The song meant so much to me. Three out of four coaches turned their chairs for me and it felt so good, my dreams were starting to make sense, I was shaking, I felt like screaming, and at that moment, I knew anything was possible. The whole adventure started from there.” Glory reveals but that is not all, hear her tell you about the ‘battles’.
“Next came the ‘battles’, I won the battles, I sang with a talented artist called Will G, we sang ‘Mama knows best’, by Jessi J. Gosh! that song wasn’t my kind of song at all, not the kind of song I would choose but the song was given to us by our coach and Thank God I rocked it. When the coaches called my name as the winner, my oh my, I knew I was doing something right.” Glory says.
If you follow The Voice America closely, perhaps you are like me that love to watch the ‘knockouts’ which is always very exhilarating. I sought to hear from Glory how the knockout session on The Voice-Switzerland was and her response said it all. “Knockouts were crazy, but comforting, we had to sing our original song from the blind auditions, and mine was “At Last”. I sang against another talented artist from Cameroun, his name is Olivier Cheuwa. I won, and made a quote during my interview, “Warri no dey carry last”. I knew my people back home in Nigeria would understand that comment. I was so happy to be part of the twelve candidates in the finals to sing on the live shows.”
“For me as a Nigerian/Swiss, if I had won the show it would be great, but the fact I got really far on the show, gave me and lots of people hope. I was the last artist from the French part of Switzerland still in the finals (the contest took part in the Ger¬man speaking part of Switzerland), it was a great experience. I got lots of votes, met so many amazing artists, the coaches were all amazing, and learnt so much singing techniques from my voice coach Martina Bovet. Now I have my own band called, Glory Bosnjak & Band. The show got me noticed. I’m respected and recognized in Switzerland for my singing talent, it is a great feeling and achievement. Thanks be to God.” She says.
Getting to the finals of such a world-class show means a lot. This Glory admits to when she tells me “To be honest it re¬ally shocked me because, I have tried the X factor in the UK, I didn’t even get a call back, that broke me a little, but I had to brush my shoulders off and keep my head high hoping something would happen soon enough. I guess it just wasn’t my time then, so on this show I was always jittery. When I heard them call out my name, and I realised I had made it to the finals, I knew something was happening that is bigger than me. Not losing hope in myself kept me going and believing.” Glory admits.
Though the show is over, Glory is being invited to various programs in Switzerland. According to her, “Participating in The Voice has given me a lot of exposure and I am grateful to God. Every day is a new chapter, a new adventure, I love it.” She admits.
Glory’s husband and children have always been very supportive of whatever she does and during the course of the show, it was glaring to all that they were and still are her number one fan. “My family members are my biggest supporters, they were there all the time. I also had a few of my closest friends who came to support me. Most times, when we had to film the show, I would go to Zurich a few days and my husband and children understood. But when I get back home, I get to be a mom again, when I’m home I’m home, I get back to my usual routines.” Glory says.
Wondering if Glory has plans to bring her music to Nigeria? Well like you, I asked too and she says “To be honest I don’t know, I have tried it before, it didn’t work out. My style of music is quite different from our usual ‘Naija’ type of music. So for now, I don’t know. I’m happy where I am. I just cannot accept to be put in a box; good music is good music everywhere. Maybe someday…who knows? Anything can happen”.
Glory has more to say about Nigerian music and artistes. Her perspective is that “Nigerians are confident people and do not necessarily need to leave the country be¬fore they become known and even when they leave, they break boundaries. Nigerian music is lively and always has a mes-sage. Having said that, the Nigerian market is big and lucrative enough therefore, everyone can have a share of the ‘cake’. Sometimes in clubs here in Switzerland, they play songs from Dbanj and Psquare, these are the Nigerian artists who have successfully worked their way up ‘there’. Personally I desire global recognition
KEMI AJUMOBI
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