08/14/2018
August 8th Green Drinks: Meeting Minutes
At our last meeting, we had Orice Jenkins, Tangsauce and Asaad (DJ Stealth) take the stage and talk about their experiences as Hartford-based musicians. These notes are paraphrasings of the conversation that went down. Here are the highlights:
Question 1: What was the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?
Orice: Alicia Keys was on TV on New Year's eve 2007/2008. After seeing her, I wrote my first song that night. I kept going after that. I used the guitar that my grandmother gave me to write the song.
DJ Stealth: [Had a multitude of experiences that I had trouble documenting in real time. Here's what I caught] I learned how to make mixtape when I was seven, how to beatbox soon after that. I started trumpet lessons in the 6th grade. As a teenager, I was hand-selected to play with the band on Chicago. I've been playing ever since I was a kid.
Tang: I was the person that did door-to-door electricity sales. But I didn't wanna do that anymore. I was a b-boy already at that time, so I just started a rap the day I left that job. I had a lot of feelings, of course. A couple days later, I decided this is what I wanna do for the rest of my life. This was November, 2010.
Question 2: Community seems to play a strong role in all of your decisions. Do you think you would be where you are without that support? Or is music intrinsic for you?
Tang: I like to express myself a lot, but I would not be where I am now without community. In Hartford, there is a very special opportunity that can be found. I just put out what I want, and people were generous enough to give it to me.
Orice: A professor at UHart gave me 10 minutes of advice, and it forever changed my life. I think I need to pay him. Various professors helped me in many ways to get me to this point. It's definitely a community.
DJ Stealth: I had started realizing the community that was around me. I started taking lessons at the conservatory. I finally joined the Artist's Collective at the urging of my supervisors. I learned how to produce, record, engineer, etc. All of this was self-taught before I even realized people actually taught these things in classes.
Question 3: Plateaus can happen at a certain point. Do you feel there's a ceiling by staying in Hartford compared to trying for new opportunities in New York, etc?
Tang: My family is here. This is where I learned everything that I know. This city has given me these opportunities. You can do what you gotta do out here. So Hartford is not a limitation. If you can't do it out here, you won't be able to do it anywhere.
Orice: This. I got a #11 album on iTunes from Hartford. Is there a ceiling? Maybe imaginary that we place on ourselves. There are niches for everyone. There are elders here. Community here. The only ceiling is imaginary. I mean, I suppose some people have to leave to make it and that's ok, as long as they don't disown their origins.
DJ Stealth: Yes, to a degree. But it's not the fault of the city. That's just the general climate of Hartford. To do this without leaving Hartford, you'll have to take advantage of the internet to its fullest extent. When we go out to other cities and perform, we're not trying to go there. We're trying to make elsewhere come here.
Question 4: You may know the quote from Nina Simone “The duty of an artist is to reflect the times.” How do you relate to that quote and how does your music reflect this?
Orice: I'm amazed by artists like Nina Simone and Nat King Cole and Stevie Wonder. Do I wanna be as vocal as Nina? I wanna uplift people. I don't wanna depress people. I love my life. I'm blessed and empowered and I wanna celebrate the greatness we do have. At the same time, this is a poor city in one of the richest states.
Tang: Why not look at the bright side? Who wants to live a negative life? I'm not ignorant to the realness of the situation. I just wanna add another color to the palette. Positivity is the goal, but it's not always the location. So Imma keep expressing myself, however that comes out.
DJ Stealth: I try to be as positive as possible. I don't really write anything introspective. I'm just writing music that's as interesting as possible. Music had always been about sonically pleasing people compared to poetry. It's just my background. However, I think you need to keep the hard conversations going however you can.
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We opened up the rest of the night to a Q & A. After that, the 3 artists announced their upcoming shows.
8/18 @ Red Rock – DJ Stealth (performing as MC Lion for this show)
9/20 @ RAW – African World Music with DJ Stealth
9/21 @ (Neville?) in Bridgeport – Orice Jenkins
9/24 @ Black Eyed Sally's – Orice Jenkin's Bday Concert
And finally, Tang told us about his one-man play which happened on Saturday, 8/11. It was a hit, of course. We look forward to seeing more from him, as well as all of the amazing talents we're blessed with here in Hartford, CT.
The next Green Drinks meet up will be announced soon. We hope to see you there!
