Nevertheless, the singer shared that for every negative comment she receives, there are a hundred kinder ones, with her favourite being uplifting messages from those in her community.
“I know that everybody is operating on their own belief system… and there’s nothing wrong with that. You can believe something, and I can believe something.”
But that is not to say that the singer never had second thoughts about her music career. Negative comments aside, Shazza said there were times she felt drained as her streams didn’t reflect the amount of effort she put in.
“I need to put food on the table eventually. Like what if this doesn’t work out, and I’m putting so much time into this when I could be working on my degree fully?”
The singer, who calls herself an “on-and-off student”, is an undergraduate at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.
She started her pursuing her Communication Studies degree in 2021 but soon realised that despite finding the coursework valuable and relevant, she couldn’t envision marketing as her full-time job.
On top of that, she was finding it harder to balance her school commitments with her music career and so, she took two semesters off.
At first, her parents were apprehensive. But as they had always been supportive of her music career, they gradually became receptive to the idea.
Shazza affirms that she intends to finish her degree, saying: “I want to honour the importance and value my parents hold for my education.”
MOVING FORWARD
Although the singer received an influx of followers from the Crash Adams feature, her newfound popularity has yet to transfer onto her music.
Determined to bring more attention to her art, she devised a plan – to release new music.
With a new song coming out soon, Shazza hopes it will encourage listeners to tune in to her previous releases.
When asked about her other goals, the homegrown singer said her “ultimate dream” is to write the National Day song.
“I think I tend to get ahead of myself, so I already started writing it… They haven’t even given me the gig but you know, I think it’s better to be prepared.”
“I really want to be able to do what I love for the country because I really love Singapore,” she said.
That aside, the singer strives to put Singapore’s music scene on the global map while representing her community at the same time.
She said: “Sometimes as an Indian Muslim, I don’t really know where I stand but I like that, because it allows me to connect with two different groups in my own way, and it’s special to me.”