Kaffy Talks About Her Early Experience With Dance

When it comes to dance in Nigeria, Kaffy is one of the first names that come to mind. In an extravagant landscape filled with pop divas and entertainment kings and queens, Kafayat Oluwatoyin Shafau-Ameh stands out.

Growing up was not all rosy for Kaffy. She had to become a mother of sorts to her younger siblings when her parents got divorced. She was herself a child, barely aged 11. But the pain from that episode affected the family’s fortune and, like she said in an earlier interview, “We went from hero to zero.”

Kaffy. Photo: Jerrie Rotimi for Guardian Life

That, however, was not enough to block her path to fame. The path might have been less than comfy, but rising to national and international acclaim has made Kaffy appreciative of her beginning.

Dance was not her initial career of choice. Kaffy initially studied to be an aeronautical engineer, but fate drove her to a new path and made way for dance.

In spite of the prestige of being an engineer and the denigration of dancing as a profession only fit for degenerates, Kaffy has no regrets. “In fact I feel more fulfilled now that [with] what I’m doing, I have an opportunity to directly impact people’s lives for the better, empower people’s minds. I couldn’t have chosen better.”

One crucial moment in her early experiences in the dance industry that she feels impacted her career the most was leading her dance group to break the Guinness World Record for “Longest Dance Party” organised by Silverbird in 2006. “That really impacted the idea of how people perceived dances.”

From there, the prolific dance artiste and fitness instructor went on to succeed in ways no one would have imagined for a dance entrepreneur. Pick up a copy of Guardian Life as we dance into the life of Kaffy.