Rockstar In Training: What I’m Into

This week I was invited to be featured in a local newspaper based off of my blog! Velocity does a feature called, “What I’m Into,” which is a pop culture piece. Erin Keane, a Velocity staff writer who follows my PamNewman.Tumblr.com blog contacted me and requested an interview & photo shoot. Being a nerd is totally paying off, y’all. In order to prepare, I did what most fly women would do: I got my hair did.

Words by Pam Newman

My hairstylist knows I’m a musician, which she thinks is kind of cool. She still always asks if I have gotten a real job yet or not. She also doesn’t listen to rock music but she’s supportive of me while I’m in her chair. The conversation rolled into music when another client of hers mentioned Beyonce’s performance at the Billboard awards, which I thought was pretty cool. It turned out that my hairstylist and her client had some Hater’s Ball level hate for Black Female performers. According to them, Beyonce is too uppity and her new song sucks, Rihanna is a ho and Nicki Minaj has a fake butt.

Nice, ladies.

They were sure to let me know they do enjoy some music: Lady Gaga is a genius! Katy Perry is the best performer of the 21st century-- and so cute too! Pink’s music has gotten so much better in the past couple of years. And then they dropped the creme de la creme of “What the fuck,” on me: Ke$ha is among the best artists out there right now. Holy shit, did these girls just totally diss a bunch of Black pop musicians such as Beyonce and Rihanna and give the green light to a bitch with a dollar sign in place of a letter?

I couldn’t handle that level of tomfoolery. So in the interest of my own interests, I asked them what they thought about Janelle Monae. Everyone loves Janelle Monae! Right? My hairstylist and her other client reached deep, deep down into the Hater’s equivalent of Mordor and brought out the most sour, vintage, hatingest of all haterade for my girl, Janelle. “Why’s she always wearing the same outfit?” “Her hair looks like a cone!” “I saw her perform at that awards show and she was just screaming! What’s up with that?” “She is just too rock.” I tried explaining what I had read and seen in Janelle Monae’s interviews. Her outfit is her “uniform,” and is an homage to the working class. She’s been in Vogue! Stevie Wonder knows all the lyrics to her most recent album! In my opinion, her songwriting is topical and far more interesting and complex than what Madonna... I mean... Lady Gaga recently released (BURN!). All of my Janelle fangirling fell on ears filled with Hateration Brand Wax. I just shut up and let her finish doing my hair.

What ties all of this together is I had already completed the interview portion of the Velocity article by the time I was getting my hair styled by Haters INC. I listed Madame Monae as the musical artist who I’m most into right now. Then the actual photo-shoot started in the morning. The morning is an unusual and bizarre time of day which is not only made for sleeping! McDonalds is actually serving breakfast while the sun is out and people are grumpier than usual. I got up, freshened my hair, drank an energy drink, put on some super-cute makeup and I was even cognitive enough to create a short video!

Alas, I got too caught up in the fancy lights and the skilled staff photographer’s creative processes to take another video. The shoot involved me going back to the Rudyard Kipling. That place really is one of my favorite places in Louisville. So we get there at 9 in the morning. I say hi and thank you to Ken, the guy who runs the Rudyard Kipling. The photographer set up his lights and other equipment while I took my makeup out and acted like I didn’t already look awesome. You know, sometimes ya gotta diva it up a little bit.

The photographer was very nice and made me feel comfortable. He did a great job of creating a space where it was less like he was a guy with an instrument capable of stealing my soul and more like a professional photographer who wanted to do a great job of capturing my energy. I felt a little creepy giving him the paparazzi treatment and taking lots of pictures of my own. Thus, the only thing I took a picture of was my mic on a house mic stand. He thought it would be a great idea for me to actually be singing, so I got on stage in front of the photographer and my mom and sang along with “Violet,” by Hole while the photographer caught shots of me doing cool stuff.

All in all it was a really cool experience. I’m also totally appreciative that the folks at Velocity think I’m cool.

Keeping it Awesome Every Day,
Your Rockstar in Training:
Pam Newman

Tags: In, Janelle, Monae, Photo, Press, Rockstar, Shoot, Training

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Comment by Keziah M on June 15, 2011 at 9:55pm: i like that Amelie in the background.... what an Awesome Movie that was!

Comment by Lunakiss on June 12, 2011 at 10:06am: Congrats on your newspaper interview. Is there a link that I can log on to read the article. J*Davey scored an interview and front cover of LA Weekly. It looks like the DIY culture is getting some spotlight. Yeah.

I'm sorry you had to listen to those ladies hate rant. I don't think they like Black female music b/c how those womyn are portrayed.

Yes, please show them the way to different types of Black Female music awesomeness.

Comment by AfroCuban on June 11, 2011 at 7:30am: I think having them meet these artists would garner, "you're a very nice person, but I still don't like or don't get your music". I doubt they'd change their opinions.

Seems people can become big and popular through the DIY grind if they can muster that. But the essential problem remains distribution I think. You can't stay DIY w/o distribution. @Kodachi makes a good point about the music industry being affected by the economy and world wide web. It's the web that can let artists be true to themselves and have the distribution they need, but the problem of being heard by a massive amount of people often enough so that they garner their small percentage of fans from that mass seems the bigger problem.

If there were DIY internet radio stations that put out music that people could tune to in the radio spectrum, and listen on their car stereos and Zunes and iPods on the go, or if their music came up in rotation on Pandora et al, maybe more people would hear them.

But then people have to buy their music. I think part of what @Kodachi said about economy and the 'net comes down to people giving up the dollars for music instead of getting thousands of songs for free.

Comment by Kodachi on June 10, 2011 at 10:18pm: Ha, should Black Witch get big enough, I would love to have tea with Lady Gaga one day, she seems really nice and intelligent. I agree with you about the industry, there's so much going on that it doesn't cover or look at because it's sticking with what's safe. A lot of it does sound the same, I think I can match drum machines and bridges now and make an intermediate stereotypical pop/rap/rock/synth song that'll prolly sell.

Man, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry, the scourges of lolita fashion >.< Staying on-topic, I understand that there's lack of Black visibility, especially any visibility that goes beyond "the fives faces" of the Black character which are all stereotypical, so these girls may just be fed up with what the machine gives them but somehow I doubt that. I think that music has also been impacted by the economy as well in addition to the internet giving the industry a run for it's money because yes there are artist that can make it big without getting signed but those artists have to be found and hustle a little hard because they don't have the easy backing of radio stations and mulit-million dollar marketing and promotions teams.

Comment by AfroCuban on June 10, 2011 at 9:27pm: "There's less black visiblity on tv in regards to programming. There are hardly any interesting black movies out. It's like the entire entertainment industry is collapsing over this economic depression and the only area that isn't suffering so horribly is music."

--The movies have to be written to sell, get read, get passed up, get greenlit, get bought or optioned, and survive development hell. Then, skipping pre-production, production, and post-production, have to get distributed, screened, and fill seats for the exhibitor. It's tougher for "niche" movies b/c we all know Brown, Black, yellow, and red films are niche and not mainstream - so we're told.

--For tv, pilots have to be written pitched, filmed and tested, packaged, and sold, and producers have to be signed up under a show runner, and then the weekly grind begins. Numbers have to be good to get more orders for episodes. Yvette Lee Bowser and a few other black women have had a lot of success, Shonda Rhimes is doing okay in her budding tv producing career, but she has movie writing behind her. New programming costs money and is risky. TVOne doesn't have any new programming, only syndicated shows as far as I know so far.

I don't know if it's a slump, though for sure money is not being spent as before, but that's always true. I think the problem may be that there are no one is going out with a variety and multitude of pages for film and tv.

Comment by Pam Newman on June 10, 2011 at 9:16pm: Hahaha! I lol'd at the Janelle at their house part.

I definately don't hate Gaga much (I'm sure context can tell you how I feel about Ke$ha) but in essence, Pop Music is Pop Music. Lady Gaga's Bad Romance has the same place in my heart as Single Ladies by Beyonce. Right now, what is mega popular within the music industry is manufactured and easy-to-digest, and the big marketing dollars are going to very few artists. The music machine can't afford to have new (good & truly original) stuff get much of the production money because it's just a risky investment. So in my opinion, most of it sounds the same.

That's why I was so extremely shocked. Katy Perry's last few singles have the same production value and style as Nicki Minaj's Super Bass (which I mentioned to the girls in the salon, and they agreed). Lupe, Janelle and Bruno are creating music and performances which is -in essence- similar to what Stevie, Michael and Elvis created... and if you're breathing you've jammed to at least one song by each of those artsits... so why the hate?

You really hit on it with the White light/Black whack, but I think there's more to it these days, at least with entertainment. There's less black visiblity on tv in regards to programming. There are hardly any interesting black movies out. It's like the entire entertainment industry is collapsing over this economic depression and the only area that isn't suffering so horribly is music.

Why? Because with music, people like me can now create a studio-quality album with little capital investment. Then thanks to the internet a video or a song can become viral.

Anyway, I've gone off on a non related tangent, haha! But what I'm saying is not that I want to take those two women by the hands and show them the error of their ways (Although that might be fun). I want to be a part of changing our culture as a whole. I haven't quite figured out how to accomplish that, but I think I might have an idea or two solidfied by the time I'm out of this, "In Training," phase.

<3

Pam

Comment by Kodachi on June 10, 2011 at 8:53pm: You could prolly invite Janelle Monae to their house and let them have a chit chat and they still wouldn't get it. They're just so bought that White is good and Black is bad. You should have asked them what's their idea of a successful Black singer, that's where it'll all come out in the wash be it good or bad. I know I don't like Nicki Minaj, Beyonce or Rhianna but that's because of a multitude of reason (one reason: Imagine growing up on whatever made history in Black Music (Billie Holliday, Phyllis Hyman, MJ, Cab Calloway, Jelly Roll Morton, etc) and then hearing those three. Tear-jerkin for me) instead of outright "I don't like them". Plus I think Lady Gaga is pretty interesting but Ke$ha? Oh noooo, they're a little bought up in that salon, ugh no.

I wouldn't waste my time on those girls. I get annoyed when people slag on Janelle Monae and Lupe Fiasco but considering me and who I know, sometimes it's like defending people you close to rather than a favorite musician. I'm just lucky I don't hear it much often if any at all, I just already know it's out there and in full force.

Comment by Pam Newman on June 10, 2011 at 8:19pm: And thanks for all your nice words! The shoot was a lot of fun!

(I had to put the thanks in a seperate reply than all that hateration!)

<3,
Pam

Comment by Pam Newman on June 10, 2011 at 8:15pm: Yeah guys & gals... the weirdest part of that hair shop experience is that both of those women are Black. I didn't want to make this particular blog entry all about them (because the point was to write about me lol)... but I was actually defending black women to black women.

I don't think I have ever had to do that before, especially in such an obvious mannner. Like the conversation litterally went from them shit talking Bey and Ri Ri to praising Gaga and Ke$ha (y'all know that dollar sign bitch really did break into Prince's house, right?). I can't even put my head around the psychology of it, its all too grand. I live in louisville, ky which is quite the self-segregated city, but I was raised in Philly which is a predominantly black town. Here I was thinking that in 2011 we generally supported the success of our people.

And yeah, it fucked my shit up about Janelle. I want to have like a summer camp or something where I invite haters to see Janelle live. And in person. (I have, three times and I really hope to make it four at
this year's ap fest).

Do you guys think that might work? What are your thoughts on why my hairdresser & her other client reacted like that?

Stay awesome every day,
Pam