User:Lizz Kalo

Elizabeth Kapenda (born March, 21, 1996) is a South African singer, songstress and songwriter. She grew up in Kempton Park, in the East Rand of Johannesburg. She is the oldest of 4 children raised by a single parent until a few years ago.

Starting off as a sports person, she participated in athletics, hockey and being an excellent cricketer. She then joined a dance crew called “Press Play” and she participated as a krumper. The crew started taking part in local competitions. She was also a “pop and lock” dancer which she says was the coolest thing at the time. She dislocated her knee a few times and even sprained her ankle.

In 2010, her 10th grade, she chose drama as a subject and took up acting. “Another exciting world to discover and conquer without limitations”, she said. This was one of her high school highlights. Still very active and juggling her studies, sports, dance and acting, she was forced to participate in a beauty pageant by a family friend because of her body structure and height. She says this was totally out of her element. “I couldn’t even walk in the high heels that were recommended at the time”, she recalls. After few weeks of rehearsals and practice, she ended up doing well at modelling too and won the ‘Miss Kempton Park 2010” pageant.

She is currently studying logistics at the Tshwane University of Technology and is also a radio presenter and news reader at Tshwane FM.

Lizz’s musical talent was discovered at a very early age of 8 as she was a contributing member of her family church choir, however she began singing lead at the age of 12. Her early musical inspirations came from Fela Kuti, Thailand Muana, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Brenda Fassie and various gospel artists.

Towards the end of high school, she grew out of dance and cut down on sports to focus on school and music. Mislead by a few so called artists and producers, she contributed vocals on some songs and even began working on her solo projects which mysteriously vanished after conflict with the producer. She has been writing music and poetry for as long as she can remember, but officially began performing as a solo artist in 2015 at poetry sessions. She moved along to perform at Cubana House 22, 2016 HOFA Awards, Café del Khuze, Capello’s pageant launch, Omega Republic 2016 and opened for Lady Zamar at the Shawdy Let Loose Heritage Edition on the 24th September 2016.

In early 2017, she was featured by Lennox Best on his two songs titled “Give It Up” and “The Weekend” from his debut album. Shortly after the features, she was signed by an artist manager from Dynamic Pictures and Events Management. Specializing in alternative RnB, Neo Soul and a little bit of Hip Hop, this makes her the influential South African female artist to merge these phenomenal genres.

Lizz went along to perform at the Window Sessions in The Orbit, Braamfontein and The Weekend Market in Johannesburg. A week after she released her first EP, she got featured on South Africa’s No.1 online magazine, Z’khiphani. Her EP was launched live on Tshwane FM and was made available on various music online store.

Lizz released her first project, a six track EP (Extended Play) titled “Ties ” in 2017. The EP focuses more on relationships, having “Miss Me” which is about a relationship gone wrong, “Treat Me Better” which is about her relationship with herself, “Day In” which is about the kind of relationships she thinks most girls visualize, “Supercial” which is about her relationship with the society and “Tall Girls which is more acoustic.

The EP was released on the 29th of September 2017. She is working with Jabulani J’Mentor Ndebele (Producer) from N.U.V Entertainment, Mbali M6, Johnny Basz and Vino (beatmakers). She released her first music video of her EP’s lead single “Treat Me Better on her social media on Valentine’s day, 14 February 2018.