Shakaya were a two-piece girl group from Australia, that consisted of Simone Stacey and Naomi Wenitong, two Cairns, North Queensland based songwriters and performers. The two met at the Atsic Music College in 1999 while studying an Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander music course and they had both been writing individually before they met each other. The girls were initially discovered in Cairns by Reno Nicastro, a big wheel at the cracker fa...
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Shakaya were a two-piece girl group from Australia, that consisted of Simone Stacey and Naomi Wenitong, two Cairns, North Queensland based songwriters and performers. The two met at the Atsic Music College in 1999 while studying an Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander music course and they had both been writing individually before they met each other. The girls were initially discovered in Cairns by Reno Nicastro, a big wheel at the cracker factory, and Michael Pearson-Adams. Nicastro produced most of the girls' songs and gave them free studio time for two years.
The band's name, 'Shakaya', was originally going to be 'Kashaya', but then their manager mixed the letters around and it became 'Shakaya'. Stacey and Wenitong did some research and found out that the word "shakaya" has a broad range of meanings in a lot of different cultures. The one that really stood out for them was the native Indian meaning of "voices in the wind". Shakaya established the duo as Australia's premier...
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