| By Claude Mills- Makeup transformations are usually amazing, but ultra-talented makeup artist, Annada Aaliyah Anthon is creating a buzz on social media with her jaw-dropping creations. The Guyanese woman is transforming herself into almost anyone, including popular dancehall and reggae artistes, with a flick of her wrist and a small army of vibrant pencils, powders and palettes. She is sharing these transformations with her more than 43,000 followers on Instagram and 76,000 followers on TikTok and they are loving them. “It was always my ambition. I love doing makeup basically, but I never thought about doing artistes,” she told Loop News. “One day, I was fooling around. I actually did one with Shenseea where I was mocking her, and at the bottom of the comments, people were calling different [names of] artistes [and] I picked Skeng. “I said I am going to try doing my face like him, and when I tried, it actually looked like him,” the spunky 20-year-old said.
She said she then began to do other artistes. “People are approaching me more and more, but I am getting a lot of heat from my own country. No one in my country doesn’t want to do interviews and these stuff with me, and my fan base is more in Jamaica,” she told Loop News. Asked to define “heat”, she responded: “They don’t like me, I don’t know why.” The young woman has a growing fan base in Jamaica, especially among dancehall artistes. She recently did a make-up transformation to look like Beenie Man, recording herself as the ‘Girls Dem Sugar’ while performing ‘Dude’. The Doctor himself reposted the TikTok video of her ‘Beenie-rific’ transformation on his Instagram account with audio of ‘King of the Dancehall’ bouncing in the background and giving Anthon his stamp of approval. Jada Kingdom, one of the other recording artistes Anthon has transformed herself to look like, recently performed at a stage show in Guyana and invited the young woman to join her. “She called me up and said, ‘I think you should come and chill with me,’ and she sent her number to me on Instagram, and I called her,” she said. Among the other dancehall and reggae artistes she has recreated looks of are Skillibeng, Spice, Bob Marey, D’Yani, Kemar Highcon, Ninjaman, Ding Dong, and Laa Lee. The Guyanese makeup artiste even recreated Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness.  Annada as dancehall artistes D’Yani, Jada Kingdom and Kemar Highcon Born and raised in Guyana, she still lives in the South American country. Anthon went to Tutorial Secondary in Berbice, New Amsterdam, which is located on the eastern bank of the Berbice River. The town of New Amsterdam is the regional capital of East Berbice-Corentyne, Guyana, and one of the country’s largest towns, located about 100 kilometres from the capital, Georgetown. She previously worked as a cashier before her social media influencer career took off. Now, Anthon wants to go overseas to hone her skills. “One of my biggest plans is to migrate from my country to another country where I can develop and improve my talent. Another one of my future plans is to work along with some of the artistes I do (recreate) in some way,” she said. 
The young woman also hopes to one day work in the movie mecca of Hollywood as a make-up artist. Anthon is among women using makeup for self-expression as they tweak their looks in a largely post-lockdown world. Many women are hungry for methods to showcase their individuality, and when it comes to self-expression, the 20-year-old has that in abundance. “I don’t do makeup like other people; I do makeup on my own level. I can’t answer for all females, but I will be able to answer from my perspective makeup is important to me coming out of a pandemic era because…let’s just say, it has helped me make a lot of money and push what I want more out there and get me to the public,” she told Loop News. Today, the Caribbean. Tomorrow, Hollywood movies and the world. (Caribbean Loop) |
