Nigerian singer/songwriter, Asa has opened up on what she had to face as a female artiste at the top of her carrier.

She disclosed that she had to prove to her strict parents that she wasn’t sleeping around.

Speaking with CNN’s Zain Asher at the Access Bank International Women’s Day conference in Lagos, she said, “In Paris, I don’t think about gender. (Rather), I have to fight being from Nigeria. Gender is not a problem. In Nigeria, I have to fight (for my) gender.”

The multi-award-winning artiste, who recently released her fifth album titled, V also noted that her gender had a profound effect on her behaviour in the early days of her career.

She said, “I was very aware of my femininity, so when I went into studios, I usually wore baggy clothing because I did not want to accentuate the fact that I was female. I did not want to bring attention to myself; I just wanted to do my job.”

According to Asa, those (fashion) choices led men to question her sexuality. “Some men would comment, ‘Are you even a woman? What’s wrong with you’?

“People think if one is a female artiste, one is sleeping around, so I had to prove that to family.”

Asa also stated that she struggled with her parents’ attitude to her upbringing, particularly her disciplinarian father. “It was a bootcamp at home.

He made us eat beans for a year, and insisted on the home help putting weevils (on), sprinkling them as protein,” she said.