Local News News Daneicia passionate about music and family Dwayne Ash17/08/20210268 views Daneicia Cockrell is a Barbadian recording artiste who is passionate about music. The former Richard Stoute Teen Talent winner is scheduled to perform a cover of Rise UP by Andra Day at the Barbados Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (BARIFA) on September 11, 2021. Cockrell said she was passionate about music from a young age but after moving to The United States her dream of being a professional singer became dimmer. “I won the Richard Stoute Teen Talent Competition at nine-years-old and forgot all other future career dreams and felt inspired to become a calypsonian, but I moved to California at age 13 and in immigrating I started learning about US culture. At 16 when I heard about Rihanna, I became inspired because she went to Combermere school with me and had been my Lance Corporal in cadets. Her success continues to motivate me to this day,” she said. Her dream of becoming a professional singer was shelved as she became married at the tender age of twenty and thus far have five beautiful children. While she has no regrets about her children, she noted that the journey was difficult. “I became a wife, mother, and homemaker, and that dream of becoming a professional singer was shelved. However, I saw glimpses of it while relishing my choir performances at church early on in the first few years of marriage. The passion for music was reignited when I was pulling myself out of postpartum depression. With four young children at the time, housework, meal planning, and homeschooling, it was overwhelming. I felt inadequate and alone. I needed to turn to something that I knew I could do well and that is when I became passionate for music once again,” she said. Outside of being a singer, Cockrell is a financial advisor, blogger and works with her family’s business. She said her target market is young women like herself and she uses her job to motivate persons to get their lives together. She said that balancing her professional life while being a mother can be a bit challenging, but she believes it is a part of God’s will. “Every day I decide what is needed and work on it the best I can. Sometimes, it is not getting the entire to-do list completed and that is ok. One practical thing that helps me is that I have created folders for each child with special letters reminding them of who they are and how much I love them. I list their responsibilities and rights and plan goals and charts to track their progress. Now that I am back out to work, I am giving them much more responsibility in the household,” she said. Life has not always been easy for Cockrell but one thing that she notes is that her faith in God brought her through the many challenges that she has had to endure in her life – her husband suffering from personal mental health issues and her having to cope with being a young mother who moved back to Barbados with her children two years ago. “Challenges push me to greater faith as I know the comeback will be more glorious because of how far I have come. There is only one way to get up and I must go that way. I know this cannot be the end of the story. The earth is dying and there is so much injustice happening in the world. I believe it will be judged and remade by the creator and I want to be a part of that. “I don’t believe persons can get away with evil, but it exists, and we suffer at times. So, when I suffer, I rather suffer while doing what is right, than suffer for being an evildoer and that is how I keep my faith,” she said. Cockrell noted that she knows that she has made mistakes in her life, but she has learned from them. Thus, she wants to help other young persons who may be going through some of what she went through being a wife and mother at a young age, to contact her so that they can have a shoulder to lean on. “I know I am a strange bird, there are not too many 30-year-old Barbadian singers with two jobs who have spent half of their life in the states and returned with five children for the same man they have been married to for over ten years. “I have made mistakes, but I want to learn from them, and I have learned from the mistakes of others. “I want to extend the invitation for persons to contact me as I am willing to offer advice on how to stay together in a marriage when the going gets tough,” she said. The recording artiste said singing the song Rise UP on September 11th, 2021, at BARAIFA is a personal testimony to all she has been through in her life. “For me, this performance merges my artistic side with my business side through a personal message. The song speaks to me directly and I feel the energy in its words. To know that I am contributing to the entertainment for my esteemed colleagues on this important day gives me the chance to use my talent to inspire,” she said. (Write Right PR Services)