But the Atlanta seventh-grader says it’s entirely believable.
“I know a lot about failure,” she said Monday. “I have done lots of auditions since I was 8 and most of them I didn’t get.”
In the four-minute song, “Your Journey Begins,” Nia Imani encourages people to “never stay on that dark road, just come along, let your spirit unfold.”
She wrote, arranged, played piano and sang vocals on the single that will be released digitally worldwide by Atlanta-based Exodus Entertainment, the company launched by her parents, Selena and Dwight Hunter, to manage her career. Selena Hunter said the single can be downloaded for 99 cents at www.niaimanirocks.com.
Two days later, she will sing that song for families and exhibitors at the March 20 Summer Camp Expo at the Mall at Stonecrest.
Nia Imani is no stranger to patrons of CrossRoadsNews Summer Camp Expo. In 2008, she electrified the audience with her rendition of Jennifer Hudson’s “And I Am Telling You” from the movie “Dream Girls.”
The former DeKalb Elementary School of the Arts student also won the North DeKalb Junior Idol contest in 2008 and played Melinda Cratchit in the Alliance Theatre’s production of “A Christmas Carol.”
Since then, she has played Broadway and portrayed Malia Obama, daughter of President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, in “Defying Inequality: The Broadway Concert.”
Between July 2008 and April 2009, Nia Imani played Young Nala, princess of the Pridelands and Young Simba’s best friend, in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “The Lion King.”
When she was picked from thousands nationwide to play the part, she was only to appear in the show at the Minskoff Theatre for six months, but Disney Theatrical Productions kept extending her stint.
“First I had to stay two months to train my replacement, then I had to fill in for someone else,” she said. “They kept calling me back so I guess I must have been good.”
The production attracted 2,000 people a show, and Nia Imani called it “an amazing experience.”
“It was great being in front of that big crowd of smiling people and knowing that I had something to do with those smiles,” she said.
It was the biggest audience she had performed for and it made her nervous at first, but Nia Imani said she got used it quickly.
“Performing is the one thing I really enjoy,” she said. “It brings out who I am. It is helping me find myself.”
Last October, Nia Imani launched her Every Child’s a Star Foundation as a means to give back to the community.
“I don’t have a lot of money yet,” she said, “but all the things I am doing are going to pay off and it will give me the opportunity to give back.”
Nia Imani says she sees celebrities with shiny clothes and cars and five houses when they can only live in one and she doesn’t want to be like that.
“I want to help children,” she said.
In the five months since, she and other child performers have appeared nearly a dozen times at Boys & Girls Clubs, schools and malls. Fourteen-year-old singer, rapper, songwriter and actor Meak, who attended DeKalb School of the Arts at the same time with her, has joined her at many of those performances.
“We are cheering up children and putting out positive messages about self-esteem and self-discipline,” she said.
Nia Imani, whose names mean Purpose and Faith, left elementary school in the fifth-grade and is now home-schooled through the Georgia Cyber Academy.
The Summer Camp Expo takes place noon to 5 p.m. Nia Imani will perform at 3 p.m. from the Main Stage in front of Sears at the mall’s Lower Level.
The Mall at Stonecrest is at I-20 and Turner Hill Road in Lithonia.
For more information about Nia Imani, call Selena Hunter at 770-548-7464.
For more information about the Summer Camp Expo, call CrossRoadsNews at 404-284-1888.
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