Damarea Ogbuewu (August 8,2005) is a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter, who started her professional music career with her Christmas song Christmas This Year in 2020. She was the first place winner in the 2018 Speak Out! National Competition after the performance of her song, “I Will Still Rise”. Over the span of three years, she has written three songs and competed in two statewide writing competitions, in which she won first place in both. 

Early Life

Damarea Ogbuewu was born in South Carolina, United States to her parents, in which her father is Nigerian and her mom holds a ethnic background of Hispanic, Asian, and Nigerian. Through her father, she claims descent of Igbo, and speaks the Igbo tribal language. Ogbuewu whose first name means ‘Special To Gods’ in Spanish, grew up performing in school plays and writing stories. She appeared in numerous music stage productions earlier on in her school career. Ogbuewu identifies as Nigerian-American and has dual Nigerian and American citizenship. Her early school stage play credits include, Romeo and Juliet, and Anowa. Her star sign is a Leo

Education

Ogbuewu attended Dutch Fork High School in August of 2019, which later became her alma mater in June of 2020. With this education, she now holds a background of learning four languages including Spanish and Swahili.

Career

2016 – 2017

In primary school, Ogbuewu’s art piece got many unforseen presentations, which was placed as a permanent piece in the South Carolina Children’s Gallery in 2015. With this recognition,she continued to persue art programs in later school years. Ogbuewu started blogging in 2016 through wordpress in which she wrote about her religion and life goals. During her time blogging, she promoted now author and model Kelvin Davis’ book, “Notoriously Dapper: How to Be a Modern Gentleman with Manners, Style and Body Confidence”[1] In 2017, she stopped blogging, and started writing novels.

2018-Present

Ogbuewu started her writing career with the release of her Christian novel, Dear Pope Francis. In 2020 she wrote three songs, one reflecting the speakout of the Black Lives Matter Movement during worldwide protests.

In 2020, Ogbuewu announced the idea of her children’s book, Amondi, which was planned to inspire young children to be comfortable in their own skin, and to love themselves. Amondi was inspired by Sulwe, written and narrated by actress and author, Lupita Nyong’o and also reflected Ogbuewu’s childhood as a Nigerian in America’s society. Her work reflects empowering young women to have self-love and have a voice. Her 2018 activism piece, “Still I Rise” won first place in the Speak Out District Competition in Columbia, South Carolina, which highlighted Ogbuewu’s support to put an end to Teen-Suicide due to bullying.

She is vocal about supporting same-sex marriages, and preventing sexual harassment. In August of 2020, Ogbuewu announced the upcoming release of her new novel, Act Like a Classy Lady; Know Your Worth. Act Like a Classy Lady; Know Your Worth was inspired by a reflection of Ogbuewu’s life with a goal of teaching young women how to behave in a classy manner and keep self-worth in mind in any situation.