Kitchie Nadal has conquered the Female OPM ( Original Pilipino Music ) niche, paved the way for a number of guitar-wielding alternative rock maidens and has proven that being a talented rock musician need not be translated to sex, drugs and alcohol. And while exhaustingly keeping up with the dogged demands of the success she’s earned, she’s stuck to her main priority and graduated with a double major in Psychology and Education. This is the kind of fire that even the nastiest critic can’t fan out. It’s a spiritual blaze that has taken root at the very heart of her being and it’s not fading anytime soon, not ever. Her album has reached double platinum status with over 60,000 copies sold and at the recently concluded 18th Awit Awards, she won in two major categories: Best Performance by a Female Recording Artist and Best Ballad for the song she wrote and composed, the compellingly bittersweet, Wag na Wag Mong Sasabihin. Two incredible feats for a young woman relatively new in an industry oftentimes known to eat its young. Her phenomenon, which encompasses all age brackets (She also won a Kid’s Choice Award from the Nickelodeon channel this year), could be theoretically pieced together, as in an abstracted puzzle where one can get close enough to make out the entire picture, except it keeps dissolving into an even deeper sort of enigma. What we do know is that she evokes a mesmerizing connection with the people because of the simple honesty of her motives. Her songs speak of an unshakeable desire to share the truth, to wake up those who have fallen asleep with lies. It’s this sincere message coupled with her love for catchy beats and poetic words that make even her stunning physical beauty irrelevant compared to the legitimate beauty of her songs. And it’s not a stunt, nor an image. It’s Kitchie as she is, and it’s what commands the people’s unyielding admiration.