Havana ’nother go at stardom
MAKING it in the competitive world of pop music takes resilience and perseverance, and nobody knows that better than Cork-born singer Carol Anthony.
Known professionally as ‘Havana’, 27-year-old Carol has experienced more than one false start in her mission to be Ireland’s next big pop star, probably the first this country has produced since Samantha Mumba over a decade ago.
Her latest incarnation as an R&B-infused, Latina spirit-channelling artist seems to be working. Her track, Dance Like That, was a club hit in island resorts like Ibiza, and a remixed version charted at No 5 in the UK dance charts.
Anthony has also appeared as one of the protagonists in a scripted reality show entitled Cokobar: The Reality Show, which aired late last year on the digital channel BET International, revolving around the glamorous folk frequenting the Cokobar in London.
The youngest of nine children, Anthony was raised in Togher and Glanmire, and started going to the Montfort Stage School at age three.
Soon after, she was performing in the Cork Opera House, and later attracted the attention of the London Academy, who offered her a place in their school when she was just 10.
That wasn’t feasible at the time. “How would my family do it, with nine kids?” she says. “They’d have had to move with me, or I’d have needed a scholarship.”
Instead, Anthony kept performing and auditioning in Ireland. She started modelling at 14, being ferried from school to shoots by her model agent. Through her networking and experience, she met an American producer who had worked with boy band ‘NSync, and was now living in Bantry.
After working on vocals with this producer, Anthony auditioned for Ossie Kilkenny, the showbiz accountant who has advised the likes of U2 and Susan Boyle. He was looking for a management project for his own daughter.
“I was 19, and I was on my lunch break from a clothes shop I was working in at the time,” she recalls. “I brought in a ghetto blaster, wore a black leather miniskirt, black boots and a little top, and gyrated around the room singing Bobby Brown’s My Prerogative. The two of them were shell-shocked.”
It was still enough to impress the Kilkennys, and Anthony moved to Dublin to develop her career. Her first song was for the Eircom League theme tune, and soon she was building a strong enough profile to command up to €10,000 in appearance fees for gigs and commercial endorsements. Along the way, she also appeared as the Cork entrant in the Rose of Tralee.
She picked up a Meteor Award nomination for best pop act in 2005, alongside the likes of Westlife and the Corrs, and also started a high profile relationship with Fair City actor Jamie Belton.
Anthony toured with Westlife for a year, and supported Elton John at the Marquee in Cork.
But things changed soon after this initial run of success. Her relationship came to an end, and she moved home to Cork for some TLC.
She found herself travelling back and forth to Germany working with a producer on an album that never seemed to come together.
“That was the worst time for me,” she says. “The album’s sound kept being changed.”
A riding accident in which her horse fell on her also left Anthony with several broken bones and confined to hospital for eight weeks.
At something of a low ebb, she eventually began to get her music career back on track and hooked up with two new producers. That’s how she ended up in Marbella shooting the video for her track Dance Like That.
“It was just me being in the right place at the right time,” she explains.
“One of the lads had worked with J-Lo and spent four weeks in her place re-mixing two tracks on her last album. They’re from the underground scene, working with the likes of Tinie Tempah.”
Under the new management of David Kraftman, and backed by EMI, Anthony has spent the past few months re-recording her album with some big names, among them Drake, Busta Rhymes, and Nicki Minaj. “If they don’t sell the album … ” she says, leaving the thought unfinished.
The reality show was also part of a game-plan to maximise her exposure. “I think they got wind of the people I was working with on the album, and that I was going to be shooting the video with Nicki Minaj,” she explains.
“Also, I get invited to a lot of things, for example to a charity event at Richard Branson’s house, which is great coverage for the network. It also gives me a platform to show my personality.”
Things are looking good for her now, but how does Anthony find the strength to keep pushing on in the face of the disappointments thrown up by the music industry? “I think it’s just that every time I’ve had a chance, something good came of it,” she replies.
“Everything is hard. If I wanted to set up a business in the morning that’d be hard too. I think with this I have enough ability to be able to make it work, and if I think that in my head, then I can continue on until something clicks.”
* havana-artist.com
