Keeping Up With Ciara

- Marielle Wakim

Every day’s a blur,’ she says. ‘There’s so much happening when you have two kids and work.’ Right now, the 33-year-old spends most of her days in Bellevue, Washington, where she and her hottie Super Bowl champ husband, Russell Wilson, live with her four-year-old son and their 18-month-old daughter. She splits time between family days at the Seattle Seahawks’ training camp and basking in the success of Level Up and Freak Me, two singles off her new album (the videos launched a pair of viral dance challenges on Instagram). Ciara is no stranger to South Africa, having shot her Freak Me music video in Soweto, dressed and styled by Rich Mnisi and Trevor Stuurman. She also visited Lagos, Nigeria, and did what she does best – dance with locals and hit viral status. No-one who saw it can forget the cute #InMyFeelings challenge video shot in Cape Town while she was on her second honeymoon. Aww! She’s also been deep in tour-prep mode.

And then there was her recent post-baby fitness routine: up to three workouts a day. ‘It was kind of like, wake up in the morning, breast-feed, eat a small meal, go train, come back, breast-feed, eat another meal, go train, come back, have another meal, and then do a third training session at night,’ she says, adding carefully: ‘It was a good challenge, one I set for myself, not for anyone else. Taking care of myself makes me feel really good. And I want to keep it sexy too, you know.’

So yeah, Ciara is not sitting back. Truth be told, she has been operating at turbo speed since girlhood. It started when she was 14 and still going by her full name, Ciara Princess Harris. While playing hooky one day in Decatur, Georgia, she happened to catch Destiny’s Child performing on a morning news show. ‘I don’t remember why I didn’t go to school, but I remember that day,’ she says.