Dr. Kafayat Shafau-Ameh known by her stage name “Kaffy” is a face that has consistently been celebrated in the dance, arts and entertainment industry in Nigeria for close to two decades now.
She is the founder of Imagneto Dance company, a Guiness World Record holder, an author, as well as a multi-award winner who has worked with top brands and artistes in the region.
As part of the new #FacebookCreators campaign celebrating creatives who are using their arts to inspire millions across Facebook platforms and beyond, Pulse sat down with the dance queen herself to listen to her story as an artist and how she has used Facebook social media platforms to shape her career.
Speaking about her early beginnings, Kaffy said she went into the dance space at a time when dancing was not only unacceptable as a career in Nigeria and had to face extreme opposition from family and friends, “It all got to that part where I was dis-daughtered, I lost friends. I had friends who said ‘my mother said we should not play with you again because you are a dancer’….. I chose dance when it was socially, culturally, religiously not acceptable to be a dancer. Dance had almost zero economic value.”
But after she went on to break the Guiness World Record in 2006, she entered a remarkable highlight in her early career, where things changed from “I dis-daughter you” to “That’s my daughter!”
“There were people there before me, I just came to put a sparkle to the whole thing, to bring it to that commercial existence that a lot of people just gave up on.… after breaking a Guinness World record, seeing the way I was able to carry the art form, the business of it, and seeing the reaction of people towards it and the opportunities it was opening, a lot of young people started keying in.”
In March 2008, two years after her 2006 record-breaking performance, Kaffy joined Facebook with the hope of giving her name and her craft a platform. “Even though at that time, I wasn’t really into the whole science of analytics and data, and understanding what to do with it, I just wanted to put myself out there. So what Facebook did for me was to have that instant feedback of energy. It helped you understand what people felt about your brand, your content, your lifestyle.” Now with millions of fans across Facebook and Instagram she describes Facebook as an office and a portfolio of who she is.
For Kaffy, Facebook has not only been essential in growing and maintaining her personal brand, but in her chat with our team she also disclosed that Facebook was instrumental in helping her get reunited with a long-lost family member.
“If you read my book, there is a story about being disconnected with the last born of my family. Since she was 9 months old, we didn’t know where she was. The moment I broke the Guiness World Record and the news was all over the place, she used Facebook to track me down and that’s how I found my sister after 22 years apart.”
For Kaffy, Facebook is ultimately a tool to bring the world together.
#FacebookCreators is a campaign by Facebook and Pulse Nigeria and Ghana to celebrate African creatives who are using their arts to inspire millions across Facebook platforms and beyond.
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