Growing up as a child in the sprawling Cape Town suburb of Mitchells Plain, Wahied Kannemeyer fondly remembers "visiting a different house" every Thursday evening, to participate in the Dhikrullah gatherings, known as the Ratib al-Haddad. It was at those gatherings, that Wahied’s knowledge and love, for what he calls “melody”, was nurtured. Wahied first ventured into Qasa’id in 1997 with the Blue Downs-based qasidah group, Al-Badr.
In 1998, he joined the renowned Cape qasidah group the Cape Malaysians following his return from study at the University of Al-Azhar in Egypt, home to numerous acclaimed Qur’raa. It is in Egypt that the Arabian melody greatly influenced him.
In July 2002, Wahied launched the CD, Salutations, which was a rendition of the famous compilations of Shaykh al-Barzanji, also known as Riwayat al-Barzanji . Salutations went beyond the shores of Cape Town with requests for the CD pouring in from Indonesia, Germany, Australia, Canada, United States, Namibia, Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, Réunion Islands, Singapore and Qatar.
In 2004, he launched Devotion, a beautiful rendering of the Cape style dhikr. Wahied's talent was recognised by Meem Music in December that year, who signed him up as an artist, and saw Devotion released as Divine Blessings on the Meem label.
Wahied is also the lead vocalist of the talented nasheed group Iman. He also writes and performs his own nasheeds and has performed with Malaysian group Raihan during their tour of South Africa.
Wahied has a great desire to perform overseas, beyond the shores of South Africa, and is earnestly setting his sights on achieving this goal. He is currently recording with Iman their first nasheed CD.
Copy: www.wahied.com 
