What is "shakaya"

Shakaya were a two-piece girl group from Australia, that consisted of Simone Stacey and Naomi Wenitong, two Cairns, North Queensland based songwriters and performers. The two met at the Atsic Music College in 1999 while studying an Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander music course and they had both been writing individually before they met each other. The girls were initially discovered in Cairns by Reno Nicastro and Michael Pearson-Adams. Nicastro produced most of the girls' songs and gave them free studio time for two years.

The band's name, 'Shakaya', was originally going to be 'Kashaya', but then their manager mixed the letters around and it became 'Shakaya'. Stacey and Wenitong did some research and found out that the word "shakaya" has a broad range of meanings in a lot of different cultures. The one that really stood out for them was the meaning "voices in the wind" (which they incorrectly credit as "Native American Indian," but is actually a Hindu female name). Shakaya established the duo as Australia's premier female urban pop act and saw them tour with Destiny's Child, Usher, Kylie Minogue and Ja Rule.

Naomi is now a member of the hip-hop group The Last Kinection. In April, 2013, Simone auditioned for Season 2 of The Voice (Australia) and after successfully having three judges turn their chairs she chose Seal as her coach. Simone was however unable to defeat Michelle Martinez in their Battle Round and was eliminated.

Shakaya is the first studio album by Australian girl duo Shakaya, released in Australia on 18 October 2002 (see 2002 in music) by Columbia. The album has a mix genre of pop and R&B songs — written by the duo themselves and their manager/producer Reno Nicastro.

The album debuted at number five on the Australian ARIA Charts and stayed in the top fifty for two weeks and in the chart for six weeks. It also made an appearance in the Australasian Album Chart, peaking at number two (just missing the number one spot by Barricades & Brickwalls by Kasey Chambers).

Shakaya produced one top ten and two top twenty hits on the Australian ARIA Singles chart: " Stop Calling Me", " Sublime" and " Cinderella".