I Don’t Sing Neo-Soul

I am not your sister, I don’t have a wide variety of incense, and I don’t sing neo soul. I find it so funny, how just because you have natural hair people have all types of assumptions about you. I mean, I never thought that I would be the girl that was happily nappy. I’ve had a perm since I can remember, and the only reason I went natural was because in college I dyed and relaxed my hair too close together and it fell out. I have never had trouble growing hair, and I even had mishaps like that before but something this time was different. Also, in college there were a lot of Black girls that were natural so I said what the hey. I shouldn’t even tell you that in my mind I thought, “Oh if it’s too nappy, I’ll just relax it again. I wasn’t on a spiritual journey and I didn’t even understand how much of a slave I was to my hair until I went natural.

When I first cut it, it was still straight. But the first time I washed it and it shriveled up I thought “God what have I done.” Lol. But I stuck it out. I had very special people in my life that were supportive and I just had to fish around for the right products and Voila! I found confidence.

So I’m saying all this to say … I am not some type of natural guru. I’m not a vegetarian, I don’t smoke weed, or any of the other stereotypes that people have about girls with natural hair. I write pop records, love ballads, mid-tempos I have a wide variety of music that I listen to. Yet so many people I have met, the first thing out of their mouth is “Do you sing neo-soul? First of all I don’t sing!!!! I don’t know why or how, but often people assume I sing. And second of all, natural does not equal neo-soul. I’m just a regular girl that just happened to realize that her Black is beautiful.

Some things I do believe are that, Black women do fall victim to thinking that they aren’t good enough. Not many support the natural texture of Black people’s hair. We are constantly weaved up and a lot of it just doesn’t look good so I refuse to believe its just fashion. I think that a lot of young women are afraid. SO many women have asked me, “How do you do it?” or “I just could never try it, I want to but …” Dammit I didn’t think so either. I just went out on a limb. And I love my natural hair and I also like to straighten my hair every now and again, but I realize now that it’s for the right reasons.

Confession: I actually thought that not as many men would like me when I went natural. WRONG. Men just dig women. Period. Most aren’t too particular and as long as you’re fixing the fro up right, they’re still going to try to holla. And you don’t even know how often they just want to touch it. White people, black people, whoever, they’re all fascinated by Black hair probably because they don’t see it like this often. I am just starting to get used to people just wanted to touch my hair. But I just don’t care anymore. Go for it, get lost in the sea of tight curls and have a ball. I am just me, not your neo-soul, your tree-hugger, or whoever, just Ashley with a spectacularly, dynamic Afro.

Writer's Block

I don’t really believe in it anymore. I mean, I definitely know that sometimes your creative energy flows better than other times. But I can’t remember falling victim to writer’s block in a very long time. At Temple, I took a class called Poetry as Performance that changed me as a writer forever. We had to write poems based on videos, pictures, looking in the mirror, anything you could think of we had to figure out a way to express it. It was then I really understood the phrase “inspiration is for amateurs.” And that doesn’t mean that “professionals” write uninspired pieces, I just came to realize that I should be inspired by everything. From looking into the eyes of a stranger and wondering what’s their story to the journey of a leaf that falls from a tree above me, I can write about pretty much anything. But what I have fell victim to is feeling unmotivated to even pick up my pen (or turn on the notes in my iPhone in this technical day and age). Sometimes I run from writing because I fear that if I put it down on paper, that my thoughts have now taken on a life all their own. And so it’s not that I can’t come up with anything, I just keep my ideas locked up. Sometimes I’d rather write someone else’s story than my own. Writing is a very vulnerable place, and as opposed to some outside power “blocking” my creativity, it is often times myself. Apprehensive about what the words come to mean when they come out of my head onto paper, onto a track. I fear that the thoughts I conjured up might actually be truth. Until someone else embodies the pain, joy or uncertainty that I am writing about, I feel like I am exposed, stark naked with the spotlight on me. But I could get use to being naked, it’s freeing. Lol. And so here I am … telling the stories of our lives, writer’s who?