Karma-Ann Swanepoel began her music career recording under the moniker Henry Ate.
Her debut album, Slap in the Face delivered several top 10 hits, including the number 1 singles “Just” and “Hey Mister.”
The follow up One Day Soon went on to win Karma her first SAMA award for Best Pop Album.
Through the mid to late 90s and early 2000s, Henry Ate toured South Africa playing sold-out shows and headlining festivals across the country.
Tours to the UK and the United States followed giving Karma the opportunity to relocate to the states in 2004.
“Don’t Walk Fly” was Karma’s first international release.
The success of this album afforded Karma the opportunity to tour the States extensively and perform at many of the famous venues she’d only ever dreamt about back in South Africa.
However, things changed for the star in 2007 after Lil Wayne released a track called “I Feel Like Dying” which sampled Karma’s song “Once.”
The sample had not been cleared and Karma’s publishers sued Lil Wayne. The ensuing years of legal battles, press, and attacks by Lil Wayne fans were too much for Karma and she decided to withdraw from the public eye.
“Papercuts” (2008), and the collaboration album “Edison Project” (2010) were the last fans heard from Karma for quite some time.
Over the past ten years, she has made occasional live appearances in South Africa, London and the States.
Now she is ready to release a new single, “Hold on Me.” The single is tragically beautiful, reminiscent of her early Henry Ate work.
She credits this to the lack of deadlines and no record companies being involved in the production process.
“I didn’t write this work for anyone other than me – which is how I wrote every one of my songs until I signed a record deal and had a bunch of people who’d never written or played a song in their lives tell me how they’d like them written and arranged”, she said.
Recorded in her home studio with her partner Chelsea Uniqorn engineering, Karma was able to deliver both her guitar and vocal parts in one take.
“It’s the most comfortable I have ever been in a recording set up. I usually freeze up as soon as I know I’m being recorded – so I end up not sounding like me. The honesty isn’t there. Chels made it super easy and let me think I was practising when actually I was recording the final takes.”