Steven Potter
The singer in action with microphone in hand.
Chakari Daezhare: The journey hasn’t always been easy.
Chakari Daezhare has found love. And then lost it. Then found it again. She’s explored the intricacies of new romances and endured the pain of break-ups. She’s been bathed in affection and attention only to turn around and be burned by betrayal. And when it’s all become too much, she lets it out in the only way she knows how. These experiences “need to become songs,” says the Madison-based 23-year-old neo-soul singer/songwriter. “It helps me get through the struggles of love and everyday life and I hope it can do that for others,” she says. “It’s what heals me and I want that for everyone.”
Daezhare (her full name is pronounced CHUH-kar-ee DAY-zur-ee) has been creating songs at a blistering rate. Last year, she released two EPs as well as a couple of singles. Then, in early January, she dropped her first full album, Chantesuta via Chanteuse, on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music.
The 15-song album is a rollercoaster of emotion. There’s the funky, synthesized story of seduction in “Sluice,” the fast-paced, dance-ready “Stand Up! Get Down,” and the slowed-down jam full of food references “Sasha is So Cute,” among wildly different tracks and a couple of live show recordings.
Daezhare’s songs can feel like she’s whispering in your ear — or she can belt out the ballads. She says her range comes from being exposed to a variety of music beginning when she was a young child. “At my grandmother’s house, we would have to wake up early on Sundays to clean — so we’d be washing walls and mopping floors to music from singers like Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers,” she says referring to the 1950s and ’60s doo-wop and R&B star. “Then, in high school, I was surfing around YouTube, looking for something different, something new — and that’s when I came across ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen and it absolutely blew my mind.” She also credits her experience and training in the Madison East High School choir with helping push her along the path to becoming a musician.
But the journey hasn’t always been easy, says Daezhare, who is a single mother. “I am not fortunate in finances at all but I am so rich in other ways,” she says. “And that’s because my mom showed me that money is not the be-all and end-all of life — it’s about how you treat yourself and how you treat others.”
She’s had to be inventive to get her music out there. “My album Chantesuta via Chanteuse is all recorded in my bathroom on my phone,” says the proud north-sider. “I used the free app BandLab and found free beats and instrumentals online. I really like the bathroom — it can be dark, the sound is right, maybe I light a candle. That’s where it all comes together for me.”
Her songwriting process starts with her freestyling. “I have a rough idea of what I want to sing but then I start just freestyling it in my bathroom. And after about 20 minutes, I have something I feel comfortable with.” Finally, she’ll keep revising and adding harmonies.
Daezhare also shines on stage. Audiences can find her without fail at the Cool Cats Collab Club, an open mic event she hosts on the third Thursday of every month at the Forward Club at Breese Stevens Field, 917 E. Mifflin St.
At a recent Collab Club, she sang and swayed through a number of her favorite songs, including “Love Bombed,” a standout track about when Daezhare was mesmerized by a man who turned out to be nothing more than a deceitful dirtbag, and “Suggadeddy,” where she feeds into the perceived need of a man to take care of her financially. Dressed in a short black skirt, brown fur shawl and high heels, she also gave a stunning performance of “He Could Never Be My Man,” a drum-heavy, downtempo track full of teasing adult innuendo.
“When I’m performing, there’s this entity coming out of me where nothing else really matters,” she says. “I’m slowly but fully feeling myself because it’s such a serotonin release — I’m always going to be louder and sing harder live and want to put so much into how I move.”
She adds: “Making the song is simple but performing should be more complex, if you do it right.”
