By Glenda Anderson, Staff ReporterNINE-YEAR-OLD KIVANA Coleman has a compact disc (CD) music collection that would make fans of Marcia Griffiths, Dolly Parton or Sandra Brooks green with envy.
Seventy in all, the assortment spans country and western, pop, reggae and gospel music.
But the chubby pre-teen with an amazing voice, big bold smile, and an impish gleam in her eyes, has also been racking up quite a few international and local medals as Jamaica's latest singing star.
Kivana had barely finished wowing the crowd and scooping the top prize at the Hilton Kingston Hotel's 5th Annual Karoake Championship in May of this year when she was sighted and selected as part of a team to represent Jamaica in the Caribbean Championships of the Performing Arts held in July. There she won three gold medals, including the top award for vocals from about 1,000 entries.
In October she was off to compete in the World Championships of the Performing Arts in Hollywood, California in the United States. She placed second in three categories, including one for persons aged 18-24 years old.
"It was wonderful. I wasn't nervous, no butterflies, nothing," says the Grade 5 student of Mavisville Preparatory School in Kingston.
Kivana says as she stepped out on stage in front of a large audience to do Tina Turner's high tempo number River Deep, Mountain High, as part of her act, she was confident that her Jamaican flavour would do the trick. Jamaica's culture was unique among the array of hopefuls.
"I wanted to show them that we could do as good as or better than any other country. First of all I didn't find any other country singing reggae, and some were singing in their own language, not in English, so you didn't really understand. So I just did my practising, went out there and sang, and it was wonderful."
Her father, who accompanied her to all her events, said that performing comes naturally to Kivana who has never had formal voice training lessons.
"She is a little 'boldy', very confident and she is really just doing what she loves to do. She loves to perform," he said.
SHE JUST SHOCKED EVERYBODY
"She started out at the Marketplace on Constant Spring Road, where we would go for karaoke on Friday nights. She was just about three-and-a-half years old when she did her first song. Personally, I didn't know she could sing, so when she asked me if she could go up to perform I said 'no', really just to protect her. But she pressed her mother (Paula) who then agreed for her to go sing (behind my back). And she just shocked everybody," he said.
"She did this song by Celine Dion, My heart will go on, and she sang it word for word, note for note. It was amazing, I had no idea at all that she could sing so well."
Since then her father has given her his full support. After she was spotted by a scout and invited to represent Jamaica overseas, Mr. Coleman said he has had almost single-handedly to fund all of Kivana's trips as Jamaica's young singing ambassador. He has had the support of the Sugar Industry of Jamaica, as well as a stranger, Billy Powell of Junction, St. Elizabeth, who only recently met Kivana.
But for the little bookworm who loves board games, and tussles with her four-year-old brother Alex, singing now has to take second place to beating the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) and getting settled in her dream school, Wolmer's Girls in Kingston.
Next stop she says is to start a career as a "wonderful gospel singer and psychologist".
