My head
began to be stimulated from a variety of different cultures in those first few
weeks. Initially, I lived in what they
call “Pigeon Town” down in the 17th Ward (Lil’ Wayne’s hood, homie). The neighborhood is predominantly African
American, demographically, and is right down the street from Hollygrove. Hollygrove is one of the most notoriously
dangerous neighborhoods in the city of New Orleans. Don’t fret, I was far enough away to not be
in the thick, but close enough, nonetheless, to hear gun shots at night
time. Right down on the river bend by
the J.P. /Orleans Parish line is where I made that first nest. I never really felt eminent danger in the
beginning, being all naïve and what not.
After all, the street I lived on was full of businesses. This, of
course, illegitimately created a safety net in my mind.
Will
was one of the only white kids in his little band of neighborhood friends from
back in the day. The culture of NOLA
runs so deep and crosses so many racial lines, thus creating this wonderful
melting pot that I previously spoke of.
There aren’t stigma’s attached to social situations where there is a mix
of people. Folks in the neighborhood say
“Hey, how you doing!?” as you walk past each other on the sidewalk, regardless
of what color your skin is.
With
that being said, people still like to rep’ their ward and area of the city. West
bank, East bank, 9th ward, 7th ward, 17th
ward, or wherever you were, each division was distinguishable in their own way.
Each part of the city contained its own unique place in history. Will and his best friend (we’ll call him JJ)
always had big dreams of holding down the 17th with their
music. Music is how Will and I even
began to be involved in the first place. JJ lived just around the corner in an
apartment with his girlfriend D. Their
apartment was right across the street from JJ’s grandmamma’s house where his
mom, his sister, his grandmamma, paw-paw, and a little Chihuahua named Coco
stayed. When Will introduced me to JJ
and all of his family, it was like they immediately adopted me as one of their
own. D, JJ’s girlfriend, and I hit it
off. We came from completely different
backgrounds and cultures, but she was one of my first friends.
Will
and I began frequenting JJ and D’s about two to three times a week. Mainly,D and I would just sit around and hang
out watching Cat Williams and whatever else came on BET while Will and JJ
worked on music. The two of them were
like frick and frack, JJ of course writing lyrics over Will’s beats. Those were the beginning days of big dreams
and making it into the New Orleans Hip Hop scene. At the time, I had dabbled into writing
lyrics on top of Will’s tracks, but I had predominantly been a
singer/songwriter folksy type genre. JJ
and Will were two key players in my style change, and trust me, JJ ALWAYS had
an opinion on my music. When I began to
really start writing to Will’s tracks, JJ was the one who encouraged me to make
a voice of my own. He told me I needed
to get rid of that country twang if I wanted to be a singer in this genre of
music. It stressed me out. However, over the course of 4 years, I did
indeed develop my own style, and no, I didn’t get rid of that country
twang. Why? Because that is who I am and
where I come from, no matter what kind of music I am singing. About 5 months ago we showed JJ some projects
I had been working on, and thankfully he approved. He even told me, “damn, I don’t know what you’ve
been doing, but you’ve done it. You don’t
even sound like you”.
Anyway,
I think it was the excitement that JJ possessed about the music that REALLY
helped push Will, JJ, and I to begin pursuing the next level.
Meanwhile,
work was really kind of sucking. For
some reason I just couldn’t prove myself the way that I needed to in order to
gain my boss’ approval. I’m pretty sure they hated me in the beginning. I think
they looked at me as a naïve girl who didn’t know what she was doing. Why? Because Pennsylvania kept talking to me,
dammit! I’ve always been a hard worker,
and I’ve always done my job to the best of my ability. However, Pennsylvania was just so fascinating
and so different than any girl I had met.
I couldn’t NOT talk to her, I mean we worked together nearly every day! First
of all, she was a vegan. I had never
even heard of veganism. Honestly, at the
time, the sound of it kind of sucked. NO
animal products, period. Somehow, she
presented it in a way that I kind of understood, though. In later years, I would meet a very
interesting man who also was vegan. He
was so extreme into animal rights, that he even made ME feel guilty about
eating a burger.
ANYWAY, Pennsylvania was a strong
female who knew exactly what she wanted in life. She worked and still works in the film
industry and had very interesting stories about famous people she had met. Being from Texas, the most famous person I
had ever seen up to that point was Mark Nestler, and that was from afar. She, at the time, had a crush on a gentleman
that she is now currently serious with.
I got to hear all of the details of their relationship, which was
interesting as well. Pennsylvania was
one of the most open minded people that I still to this day have ever met, and
she had VERY interesting ideas about relationships. She was VERY open about sex, haha. It makes me giggle even now some of the
things she said, but for the sake of my more conservative readers, I won’t
delve into. She did say that one day she
wanted to present the idea to her future husband of taking on her last
name. She even knew someone back in
Pennsylvania who had swapped names in that fashion with her husband. Oh the times, the times.
My first few months were just a big
fat culture shock. Everyone needs to
hear different ideas at some point in their life though. How else can you decide where you stand? Everything in my life, up to that point, had
been rather one sided. This wasn’t a bad
thing, and I wouldn’t change my upbringing for ANYTHING. However, something started happening to the
way I thought about things, people, and issues.
I was not in Texas anymore.
Really enjoy reading your blog Megz. :)
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