Kania Leonard

Mr Kania said many people claimed that life was becoming hard today but that was not true, life started becoming tough in early 1970s. He said some people had been fortunate to gain employment, but most of them were standing on the street doing nothing trying to earn their living.
Mr Kania became a solo artist when he realised that there was no employment for him.
He completed Grade 10 at Kokopo High School in 1977 and stayed at his Malaguna number four village in Kokopo waiting for a job offer but it did not eventuate.
Mr Kania got married to a young uneducated woman Mathilda from Ralas village in 1979 and she gave birth to a baby girl named Patricia.
The couple lived with their daughter at his parents' house but they were not happy with his wife so Mr Kania and his beloved wife decided to look for a new place to stay.
So Mr Kania and his beloved wife left Mr Kania parents and went to Mathilda's village and stayed there for a decade.
One fine Sunday morning Mr Kania sat outside their house and came up with some ideas to earn some income and collected some cocoa and sold it for K6.
He went to the store with his K6 and bought a guitar, came back to his house and started to learn how to play guitar to become a solo artist - and at the same time he hunted around for songs.
In 1980 he composed 12 songs and started to look for bands like Junior Ebou and Believer to support him but they declined, claiming Mr Kania did not compose interesting songs that would attract people.
Fortunately Kamit Mamuo from the Gravediggers band and Vunsim band vowed to support him respectively with his songs so he recorded his first demo and gave it to Pacific Gold Studios (PGS) that attracted manager Greg Seeto and he recorded his first solo album in 1986.
And the rest, of course, is history!