I was born in Aklan province, Western Visayas, in the Philippines. My father was a farmer and my mother was a midwife. I am the youngest child of 8. Sadly, when I got to 13 years of age, my father had cancer and died. Some of my siblings have also passed away over the years.
In the Philippines, there are no social benefits. We all have to work hard to support ourselves and my mum struggled to bring us all up on her own after Dad died. So I did not get into higher education.
I went to Manila at the age of 15 and worked as a housemaid for about a year. Then when the opportunity came, I entered into a singing talent show and won. That was the start of my singing career and I started doing gigs at local bars, hotels and night clubs. Two years later I had a band doing night club gigs around Manila and other cities for a year and a half. Then I become a solo artist and had a contract through an agency to work in Japan. I worked in some night clubs in Tokyo city, Nagoya city and Fuji city for about 2 years altogether.
A few years later, I met my husband in Manila 1987 and found true love with him. After we got married, we decided to live in England where Martin comes from. I decided also to finish my singing career because I wanted to have a proper family life with Martin. And Martin adopted my 2 children so that they can come to live with us in England. 2 years later in 1989 my youngest child was born.
Life was tough for me at first in England because I wanted to earn some money to help and support our family with Martin. But I had no qualifications and no experience except for singing. I was still determined to have a good family life so didn't want to get into the entertainment business, so I took what I could get. I did a number of different jobs during this time. My husband and I worked so hard to provide for our family and really tried our best to bring them up in a proper way. We love them so much and always want the best for them. But they are all grown up now and have jobs, their own home and their own family, so I thought I have time for myself now to do something that I always loved. And also something that I want everyone to remember me by in the future. So, around 2012, I started practising and training my voice again to be able to sing like I used to do and I taught myself to play guitar and also started writing my own songs.
I was put in touch with Kenny Charles by a mutual friend and he arranged and produced my first 10 songs which formed my first album of music – Messages. Two years or so later we worked together again to produce the second album of songs, Whispering To The Wind. All of the songs that I have written are about my life experiences or subjects that are dear to me. Some of them have deep meaningful messages that I want to deliver to everyone but some of them are just for everyone to enjoy. Unfortunately, around the time of doing Whispering To The Wind I became ill and couldn't promote my music. Recently I decided to rename the second album to Are You Ready For It? And I re-released it under that name.
My husband and I moved to Spain in 2019 to help ease my health problems which are due to having fibromyalgia, and I do generally feel better living here. So now I feel well enough to be writing again and making music in association with Kenny.
My latest song, released as a single, is called The Year Of The Mask and was actually written as a poem by my husband but we reworked it to make a song. I came up with a melody for it and then we sent it off to Kenny who arranged and produced it. Check it out on my Music page.
Thank you all for your support and appreciation for my music.
Lots of love,
Nida