Impact the World: India Arie

[Music] welcome to impact the world the show for and about creatives change makers and entrepreneurs this is a conversation episode where a special guest shares with me what they are creating and the behind the scenes journey of their experience [Music] [Applause] [Music] india re has had a 20-year career so far and during that time she has sold over 10 million albums worldwide won four grammys been nominated for over 20 and yet despite the outer successes of her career she has had a deeply spiritual and transformative journey through it so we got connected a few months ago and i was absolutely delighted that india agreed to have this conversation with me because her story and her journey has such gold and for any of you who like i do love her music and love her voice it's a real treat to get to know a little bit more of the woman behind the music so i hope you enjoy india re in conversation with me for impact the world [Music] india thank you so much for being here on impact the world it is truly a delight to have you thank you it's delight to be here so one of the most interesting things for me in the last couple of weeks coming up to this interview with you is when i mentioned it in our team meeting about a week ago everyone was like i love her i have a few different friends who um just mentioned what i'm doing this week and i said i'm really excited i'm getting to talk to india this week and they're like i love her so you inspire you inspire this beautiful appreciation for everything that you do and i mean you've had quite the impact on the world you know the show is called impact the world and for 20 years now you have been impacting the worlds of so many people and it's been lovely to see that so deeply personally in people that i know did you know when you were little that this was part of your path and part of your design or is it a surprise to you uh first of all thank you for telling me all that i love to hear that i'm i have good goodwill out there in the world um no when i was little no i didn't even think that i haven't thought about this in so long when i was little i didn't think that i was the right type of person to be a professional um singer because i had a deep voice and i didn't look like the people on tv and so i just thought because person like me be famous but it wasn't a real thought it was just like a people like me don't that's why that's why we say representation matters because you need to see people like you doing things and so there was just a thing that i just believed but i wasn't dreaming of being a famous singer but my whole family's saying it's just we all sing and so it was just natural and i realized at some point that i could sing better than other kids but it still wasn't like this is what i'm going to dedicate my life to and i'm going to start training at 12 it wasn't anything like that but when i turned when i graduated high school my mother told me she would kill me if i didn't go to college and so i went to college to art school to be an art history minor and a jewelry metalsmith major because i love jewelry i love small scale i love jewelry i can do a whole podcast about jewelry but so um when i got there i realized how much i really missed music because i took music classes all through high school middle school and elementary school but it wasn't like uh my mother took me on friday and it was just part of school and so i didn't look at it like i didn't realize i would miss it when i graduated and so i got to a visual art college and maybe like three months in i just started writing songs i never wrote songs i never thought about it really my mother was a songwriter and a singer so i saw her doing it but it wasn't like i want to do that too but when i got to college something we just kind of all came together and i had things i wanted to say and i was having all this emotional awakening and as a singer and a writer like i was a writer but not a songwriter and then i was in this visual art school so it was like i felt like i had to fight my way back to my music and that's the first time that i started thinking i was probably 19 or 20 at that time i started thinking that music was what i would love to do with my life but it's still like who thinks they're gonna be a professional singer like who really goes like i'm gonna do like you know it's kind of like a fantasy i mean it's not now it's definitely not a fantasy but like then it was like a fantasy to think that i could but i just knew music was what i wanted to do what i always did i missed it and so when i got into college i wrote these songs and sang them at a coffee shop and everybody stood up when i finished the first one and they like asked me to sing another one so i sang the second one that i had written and then they stood up again so i sang the third one and then i was like that's all i have yeah and uh i knew then that it was that i just needed to go ahead and pursue it so i tried to go back home i went to savannah college of art and design and i tried to go back home to atlanta and transfer to a school where i could be part of the music scene and go to college and they wouldn't give me my transcripts and so i just asked my mom just give me let me just take a chance to do this and she thought about it and the next morning she said i don't want you to be like me and your aunts where we just sing in the kitchen and we sing at church i think you should really give this a chance and she reminds me all the time that i started making my own money in six months it wasn't a lot but i was making my own i got enough to buy a car um she bought it and then i had to pay her back but i i was doing it just by making music and so i mean i think 20 is really young to think to know what you want to do with your life but it wasn't kid but a kid like 20 i i knew that i wanted to try and then very quickly people were trying to sign me and coming to fly to see me sing my songs and it was all weird i didn't trust anyone and i finally just took a leap and did it at some point signed a deal it was probably like four years after sitting under the trees in savannah i was on tour with sade yeah and your first album sold over three million copies right that's what they say i don't even really know no i i was doing a little research and i was because i was also trying to get perspective so first of all i love that you talk about jewelry and art because the visual beauty in your work is so present like from from from from from day one with all your videos and and we'll talk thank you more later about crazy and sacred space which just thank you ah just gorgeous and you released that this this year but um one of the things that i was wondering about you know because i've read a lot of interviews of especially for women and also as you say you were you know you were under underrepresented at that time like you're a woman of color you have this big success and you're a woman in the music industry 20 years ago and i i thought god what was that like for her the the the the impact of going out quickly and going out fast and in in your early 20s which is when most of us still are trying to figure out who the hell we are you're suddenly doing it under the glare and the spotlight and uh yeah the appreciation but also the shadow side that can come with that how what was that like as a rite of passage i thought that the hard part was making the album which took me two years to do and back then it felt like forever because i didn't know if i was gonna be able to do it so two years is a long time when you don't know if you're gonna succeed at all and then i was 22 23 making the album and then it came out and that's when everything really got hard because the amount of movement and travel and the like the amount of energy and people that are around and then you literally literally are supposed to not have a hair out of place or to pronounce a word wrong or it was so much and i remember being on an airplane and writing in my journal that i didn't like it like i don't like this all this moving and flying and it wasn't that i didn't like it mentally it was like my body didn't like it and i didn't know it took me many years to even under to even hear anyone talk about what it meant to be a sensitive person or to be an empath i used to just be like i would ask people how does everybody else do concerts and they get up and go to breakfast in the morning and i have to lay down until tuesday how what is this i would be asking people whenever i would meet people i thought were wise or people who did spiritual work and i would just be asking all the time like what is this why are they like that and i'm like this because i just didn't um respond well to all the movement and the and the talking like because you know people want to talk to you and they sometimes run up behind you and touch you and you don't know they're coming and people are sometimes like very emotional i didn't know how to i don't i didn't i have learned over the years but back then i didn't know how to administer to someone who was bawling their eyes out in the airport i'll just go oh oh oh what do you do and so it was so so much and then at the end of that year the grammys came around and i didn't my album was big but it wasn't that big and then when the grammys came around it surprised everyone and i got seven nominations and i think i had the most nominations of anyone that year there might have been someone else but i got the most and there was one person under me so they like pitted us against each other and then she won everything and i won nothing and that was my introduction to like the politics and really my introduction to the darker side of how people can be because i just didn't know so i was thinking that i'll make an album was the hard part then i thought the travel was the hard part and then i realized that the hard part is really just dealing with people and the politics of everything and how we treat each other because it's all magnified in the music industry because there's so much money and power involved people just do things they would never do in their everyday life so i didn't know any of that about people i didn't know somebody could say my son is five years old he loves listening to your music but i'm not going to play it on my radio station like you could forget about that like i didn't know people would actually do that it's not new to me now of course um but that part is what makes it like for me the music industry is a necessary evil because it's the only vehicle to get where you're going i mean it's changing now because of the internet but still people need to know your music is there even if your music is great but they don't know that it's there like there's still that marketing will that you need a lot of money for and things like that and so we're all figuring out new ways but that first um to answer your question that first um initiation was really hard and i've been feel like i've been processing it at different levels all this time i had a big clearing about it back in 2009 about 10 years ago and i came i thought i was going to retire and i came back into my career deciding that i tried everything except for just being me just fully just be me don't say no if it's no say yes when it's yes tell people be quiet roll your eyes whatever you have to do tell them you know ask for what you want you know all this stuff just just be me and so for the last 10 years i've been doing that it's a lot more work but it feels better at night when i lay down i don't have ulcers now and i don't have things uh depression and all the stuff that was coming up so that initiation was harsh harsh harsh harsh very and the thing that made it really crazy was that i didn't have anyone to talk to about it no one understood that my mother was always like my person and she didn't get it at all so she would just be like what's wrong with you yeah and i think also the perception that we have so you know i remember i was in a workshop uh in a self-growth workshop and i think that was the first time i heard you i would have been about 25 so i'm 44 it's about 19 years ago so i was 25 because i'm 44. right okay so so yeah i heard your your voice maybe i was a little older but i remember your voice came in um actually i must have been older because the song was i'm ready for love and that didn't come out as early it did it did yes it came out in 2001. great so that's how i i heard it because i also just saw that recently on your 2013 oh no i'm thinking of i'm light anyway yes i won't go through your whole discography right now um but i remember that that song and those words found me at the you know just the right time when i too was trying to be ready for love and open for love and get over my own self really what was self-hatred and shame about being gay and all that stuff that i had to unpack um and and that song found me so my perception of you at that time would have been lucky india she's out there making record you know she's she's got the so i think that's the tricky thing too when you have success in your career you're the commodity that people then start to feel should just be delighted about it because that's the narrative that we're all being sold whereas actually we often don't think oh the commodity that is giving me this wonderful experience how they feeling how they doing today what's the kickback that they're getting from all of this attention and psychic energy coming at them that so i think you know and i think now we have more understanding of that but 20 years ago and the other thing i thought about with you and i was struck by this because you're a very beautiful woman and when i was watching some of your videos again from 20 years ago and i was just thinking about you in that time i thought well number one women are objectified way more than men and their women's women's beauty and appearance is really critical and certainly was 20 years ago and i remember hearing i think it was tori amos or somebody saying oh they wouldn't play my records because i was told they already had one woman in that slot for an hour and i never understood when i would look at like rolling stone or q magazine in the uk they'd say the top 50 albums and there'd be like three women and i'd be like you know i was biased to women's voices so i'd be like where are the women why is this like a man's club but 20 years ago we were still i mean it's still there now but it's it is changing thankfully but yeah it must have been quite the thing to live through i mean i think the other thing about it is that there's a woman's box that they put you in and then if you're a black woman there's a black woman's box that they put you in so it was like you know i came in bright in time when it was in style to be a certain type of black woman so they were calling us neo-soul none of us put that name on ourselves that's what they called our genre we were called me also and so we were the end thing for a minute there so i came to the industry right in time to catch that wave and then once that was over it was like we can have one black woman here like one so it's still kind of what you see today um because even when you think of the woman box the woman box usually gets given to a white artist that's true yeah then there may be a black one maybe but she has to really capture people [Music] so but that's the politics and that's kind of what happened when i went to the grammys that year where i learned like this is not about the music and it's not even about the artists themselves it's about the record executives and how much power they have and you know the record executives are generally generally all white men so they're going to look at women through those eyes like what do what you know what do they think is attractive what do they is this woman you know the male gaze the rich powerful male gaze and so it trickles down to you're going to get less marketing dollars depending on what this male gaze says you're valuable for right and so we know because when you really can see people you see beauty in them in a lot of different ways not that everyone is beautiful to you but you see beauty and diversity when you really see people but that's not how the world is and this is definitely not how the music industry is and so for me i didn't fit no matter how young and beautiful i was and how interesting my clothes were and how my music how it touched people i didn't fit and so it started making me feel like this i'm in this world that's not meant for me but it's the only vehicle i have to get in this car and so i what i did have a lot of success especially given all the check marks against me i've had a lot of success and even now i have to kind of like giggle about it because i see a lot of artists who are not free and i'm free pretty much i'm free i do what i want i make the music i want to make i own my publishing i'm on a label where i have a partnership and i it's a wonderful like very ethical business model finally but um it didn't feel good going through all that stuff in the moment but i like where i am now and if it had to be that way i would i don't want to do it again nobody wants to be 25 again yeah but no no no thanks no but i like where i am i like where i am and business wise speak i mean i like where i am in a lot of other ways too but just speaking about the business yeah i know because i know a lot of those people and they are not free yeah and i'm free and i get to put albums out and so it was a shock last year when i had a number one and a number three song we were like what like what like i had a hit at radio it was so funny so i'm free i'm 20 years into my career i'm with the ethical company i own my publishing i control the rights to these recordings and i have a hit song at radio so it's i'm under you know the older you get the more you're able to put things into perspective yeah and so i'm seeing it in perspective now and i'm at peace with my journey mostly um this whole the new the recent black lives matter protest stirred up some stuff in me that's a different conversation too but i the boxes and who they say is allowed to be success and who they choose and who they press down and who they lift up and it doesn't have anything to really do with your how good you are it's like who chooses you and the chooser is a very narrow demographic that is the chooser you know so i had to as you may know the one of the most common themes in my music is self-healing and self-love and so it's like that because of all the stuff i came through in my youth in my childhood and so i start writing songs i'm writing songs about the things that i i need to learn and that i want to say but the music industry made me need to sing it more it was like healing from all these other things and healing from the disappointment in humanity healing from the awakening around how people look at women like just all the healing that's always needed yeah so it's been interesting being in an industry that i am also critiquing in my music and getting to a place where i'm actually a free person who's successful too it's a good it's it's turned out well yeah mostly he has but you know what's funny you you have your music video little things which is a great video and it's i think little things is what 2001 2000 it's it was my second album so it's probably two thousand three or two or three okay three two thousand three yeah the album's called voyage to india yeah so anybody who's a fan of india's who hasn't seen that video in a while or doesn't remember this part it really struck me when i was watching that again the other day there's this brilliant scene where you're on some plastic television show in the song being interviewed by somebody and you know she is very much the typical plastic presenter and at one point during the interview this ladybug or ladybird as we say in england lands on your finger and you just focus on it and you become so entranced with it you forget about her and she's all confused and you leave the studio and that's my favorite part of the video you leave the studio and you you're really free you're walking down the street but i was watching i was like wow this was so ahead of its time not even the disengaging with the plastic industry which was ahead of its time then but it was more the way you're styled the way you're dressed and what you're representing i'm like if this came out now everyone would go oh cool really woke video perfect but back then we didn't really have much of that and at the very end and i don't know how intentional this was you watch you don't turn into an angel exactly but as you're walking away the shape of your dress and and the dress turns to pink from white there's like these angel wings and i'm like oh that was really cool and it was very ahead of its time thank you yeah i think there's like nine things come to mind when you talk about the song little things because when i wrote it it was right after the grammys and one of the things i said in the song was i do this for the love of music not for the statues of gold that's what i said when i wrote it and then people were like you can't put that in there don't say that so the song says not for the glitter and gold okay and so because they don't want you to not get those awards that's why right because if you right they might not give it to you which they still didn't still didn't um but i it's funny because oh that's not true actually i did end up winning that next year whole other conversation again right but i feel like i hear that a lot like people are like you're like ahead of ahead of the time but i don't obviously i don't think about that when i'm doing stuff to me i'm like this is how i'm feeling this is what i want people to know and i really music for me is a spiritual work and i i literally pray for my songs and i literally pray intention into them like i'll talk out loud okay i want this one to be a song that will help anybody who feels like nobody knows what they're going through like i'm you know like i'd be sitting at my table like really praying for my songs really really do and and also it's become a formula because i find when i don't pray first nothing comes out so um i call it my songwriting practice and so i'd like get myself into a place and i pray for my songs and i just sing what i hear after that and it's frustrating but also really i'm cool to know that if it came out now would be like really in um but it's also frustrating because there's so much that i want to say um about what's happening now just current times or even last year even 2016 so much that i wanted to say but i'm like i already wrote that song am i supposed to write another you know so then i would like try to push the song out on social media or just you know push it out but it's still not the same but i am learning what i'm going through on my personal level right now is um trusting that wherever the music's supposed to be it'll go and and relinquishing any desire to control that i can't control anything but just keep doing what i do and do the quarantine i wasn't feeling inspired at all i just wanted to rest i was really tired from 2019 and then i started thinking maybe i don't write songs anymore like i don't know i still haven't written anything all year so i don't i don't know i assume that i'll come back to music because it is my passion but it's not as clear what i want to say these days because i i said a lot of the things that would i would still say now now will i asking myself yeah after you oh no i was going to say there is a timelessness and a classic like i i know that james taylor is is like a an important um songwriting yes right yeah yes and and you two are so similar in that way to me like you know james's work for me is very cl like could be any time just classic and really and and so you have the same thing and and so it's interesting because you know yes if the music industry was the bridge that got you into all of our hearts it worked because that response that i was getting about you it's like people love you it's like they you know oh i love her and i you know i when i was looking at your some of your videos i just loved this quote from youtube and it was underneath crazy in sacred space which i'd love to talk to you about in a minute um and it said india re went from woke girl to soul sister to earth mother and there is something very powerful about taking a journey with an artist like you know yeah first of all you have to be old enough to do that i guess so this won't really apply for anyone in their 20s but what i can vouch for is you know at 44 seeing sacred space and crazy that it's so basically for anyone who hasn't seen it yet we're gonna put the link to this underneath the interview as well as uh the link for india's website but um it's a it's a it's a short movie basically that takes two of your songs and it's this journey and i was so moved when i saw it and it was very powerful for me to also have spent 20 years with you and to to have that growth journey with you through these songs so yeah i think all of you you know any of your songs could be played now and thank you said oh this just came out and people be oh that's really cool so i i don't know if you do need to reinvent the wheel but one thing that really hit me about the timing of the release of crazy and sacred space is it was right before all of the protests began and more of the murders happened and it was it was it was very interesting that you put that out that such a positive glowing image right before a load of this other crap that you know i kind of feel gets orchestrated and inflated and in all ways that are very unhealthy um started it was like a really important bomb that was needed and somebody wrote here on youtube um i love that she depicts us black men as protectors and guardians of the hearts of black women because we do exist and we are out there um and i i thought yeah i mean just so we'll talk about the video in a moment but for you it's interesting that that timing i feel happens organically anyway i feel like you were so meant to put that video out then because it it was really needed as a kind of counterbalance to to the trauma that followed he said you said a few things that sparked a few things i finally have gotten to a place in the last three years or four years or so where one i don't i don't hide um who i am what how do i say this i don't hide my spiritual life anymore there are things i keep private but i don't hide it anymore because a bigger part of that conversation is having to hide anything to be palatable to as many people as possible and so i was always told to be careful not to alienate the christians basically because most people in our society are christian most of my fans i think would be christian or whatever especially back then people are now awakening to understand that you can be spiritual and christian all kind of things but it certainly wasn't like that 20 years ago not for me and so there was that part of me that had to hide certain things and so like some people have to hide their sexuality or whatever the thing i hid was how i expressed my spirituality and so but the specifics of that aside the fact that i would live a life where i was hiding anything is something that i'm just not willing to do i keep private what i want to keep private but also if there are things that i want to say i say them but that's to come i feel that that comes with maturity and making choices knowing that consequences and being willing to deal with whatever it is and so with uh crazy and sacred space i finally was ready to make a video that showed me inside some of my spiritual practices actually doing them and so when reverend michael who i asked he's who married us in the video remember michael beckwith from agape when he came he said are you going to actually be doing actual yoga asana and i was like we're doing yoga on this camera today and so um that was my own personal bone like no i'm really gonna make the video i want to make and then because i with the company that is ethical and who respects me now um i was in the same record deal for 17 years and i just got out of it in 2017 and so being with the company that like respects me and that does ethical business is so new for me and so the the single they chose was the song crazy but what i have seen is um in concert and especially all of my very spiritual friends sacred space is their favorite one on the album and it was the one that would just bring the room to a certain place whenever we sang it in concert and so i asked them can i just get a little more money i'll make two videos for one and they let me do that and then um i ended up deeper in the editing process than i ever imagined i would be and i was able to edit it into this short film which is something i never thought i would do it was not anything that i ever felt like i was um allowed to do as an artist who was in control who was controlled by a record label and you know you have to sell 10 million albums to make a short film you can make a video but you can't make a short film you have to be you know a plus star like the way the boxes they try to put you in and so there's a lot of freedom inside of crazy sacred space for me a lot um and then the timing yeah i had to admit in hindsight that i think it was the perfect time to because it took a long time to put together it's one of the most stressful projects i've ever done and that is saying a lot because the music industry is full of stressful moments and projects and flights and scheduling it can be very very stressful this one was stressful because i it took 300 hours plus of editing but i didn't know i was going to edit it and i've never edited anything it just didn't look right and so i jumped in and did it and so if somebody said you have a 300 hour project coming up okay but to be like yeah i did this video it's going to come out in two weeks and then you have a 300 hour project it was like but i did it because i cared that much about the people in the video and i wanted their skin to look right i wanted the video to feel right and to read right and so i did it and so it was very stressful and i was very upset with the director very and but um we shot it february 27-28 up in topanga canyon and the editing was done april 25th and so i had no idea it was going to be anything like that but then when it came out in hindsight right between in quarantine and before the protest and like you called it that bomb when it came out in that window in hindsight i had to admit like all of it was what it was needed to be even the editing even me learning how to edit even the delay and the everything even the fact that i rushed out to la and was like we need to do it this week because right that was right before people started really talking about covid19 i remember coming home on the plane february 4th and being like maybe i should have the mask because nobody had mask and it wasn't like that yet people were talking about it and so it was just in time and so if if the stress had to come with the waiting and the rushing and the travel and the editing for it to be right in that window for me it was all worth it because i feel like it was the right time to and it was the right time for me too because i got really quiet during the quarantine really really quiet i felt guilty at first because i'm supposed to be a person who sings to people and sings songs that will help them feel good and what i'm supposed to be and not that anybody put that on me but that's how i still i'm seen then i remember i'm also the person who doesn't talk for days on end and who loves actual silence and who stays in the house as much as i travel and so i finally just actually wrote a note in my phone that was like thank you because everybody was asking me to go live and to go live on their channel and to sing and everybody everybody yeah i wrote a note that said thank you for asking me you know i love you i would do this for you if i could but right now i'm resting ask me in two months because there was so much i was just copying i would copy and paste it now like maybe put their name on it because i didn't just want to not answer but i also i didn't want to feel like i was forced into being something that i'm not and i'm sure you know that because of the not that i'm not but i'm in a place of transition so i'm mush i'm like the butterfly who's mushy in the cocoon at this moment and so i don't know what i am and so i can't be what you think i am right now is how it felt and so i'm sure that you know that a lot of people are feeling that way because of the work you do yeah just now like maybe literally three days ago started feeling like ideas before that i was just you know so putting the an and when the protest started i went from like i'm home it's good to mad and sad and feeling a lot of anxiety and having to take naps and being like i did a live on my own instagram and there's a image of me like right as i'm pushing record and i just my eyes are just like i'm mad you can see that i'm like sad and mad there's a thing and i just was like i'm not going we're not at this tv studio i don't have to go hi everybody i don't have to do anything so i just push the button and talk and so the crazy sacred space coming right in between was important for me too because if the protest had started i would have i think i would have waited yeah and i would have maybe been waiting till now because i literally just started feeling some sense of being grounded days ago days ago so it was the right window for me and i think it was the right window for everyone else to end the editing i'm glad i did it yeah it's like yeah i'm telling you man video editing it's the it's the if you don't know about video editing people have no idea like it's the biggest time suck and there's nothing that's insane it's mad yeah but but you know what's funny is it's interesting i i totally get you saying it wasn't the right time for me i also there was like a fight or flight jump on the bandwagon everybody's got to do something like now which wasn't true either you know for a lot of people it was just like a lot of a lot of like um misdirected fight or flight energy i'm not criticizing anyone who did it but there was a lot of that oh my god we've all got to do a summit quickly um i don't really ascribe to that i'm like if you feel compelled to do a summit you're the person to do the summit but you don't need to drag everyone else with you especially not if you're not coming from a grounded or centered place so i i admire you for doing that but i also just want to point out you did it because that video that i shared on several facebook pages and with friends i got a huge response and i also saw the beautiful harmony version that you did with some of your friends and that was just stunning that you did on facebook so from my perspective you were out there you weren't necessarily talking but you you didn't need to because the job you were doing for so many of us was was was was bringing healing and and that was very evident through your creations so yeah yeah you know when we first got on this live and you said that a lot of everyone said oh i love her and i said thank you for telling me that i really meant that because i don't ever ever know how anybody takes anything i do because i don't think about them when i'm writing and you can't do that because it will stun you you can't because you can't make everybody like anything so you have to put all the outside energy aside and do what you're doing and so when people say all my friends said they love you i really meant thank you because i i don't know and i didn't see it that way until you just said it that way so thank you for saying that and people say that india from their heart that's why i'm relaying it to you because you know you know the difference and you know when you work in a field where you're putting work out into the world you meet a lot of other people who do that you have that coming at you sometimes so i know the difference and with you it was like oh man she's she's got a whole lot of people in love with her which is great you know and i'm not surprised because i think i think because you bear your soul and you offer your soul through your work and you let that be the conduit for your work i think that's why people are so touched so thank you i realized for anyone watching or listening if you haven't seen crazy in sacred space go check it out because crazy is just this beautiful love story it's kind of like the fantasy relationship that we all you know oh that looks you know it's like great it's gorgeous it's got it's got michael reverend michael bernard back within it too but then i have to say for me oh my god going from that into sacred space i was really enjoying the video and then all of a sudden i was kind of like what is happening now because the song and the the soul world that part two or the second half of the video conveys is so deeply moving and anybody who sees it will will feel it so i i know we've already spoken to you about it there's a lot i want to ask you about i would love to hear more about your experience of this new business relationship because music and business art and business that something i've navigated it's something i teach people how how do we form a like you said an ethical relationship between those two so is there anything that you could share about maybe the joys or some of the challenges the last few years of of kind of reclaiming your sovereignty when it comes to business i want to tell you two things i always have two things oh you see me looking down to the side because you're saying things that i want to come back to so i just write like little notes when i'm looking down good um um [Music] this whole thing of regaining my sovereignty has been it is a process i'm still in because what we know as you know people on spiritual journey the thing that enslaves you is your mind and i'm still discovering things and like pulling the veil back on things like um [Music] just the other day um someone from my label said he wanted to chat with me on the phone and i don't talk to them you know we talk on set of the video or something like that they talk through my manager we don't just get on the phone i don't with the label and he had a creative idea and as we were on the phone i was like and i kept telling him this is so cool like to be having a conversation about a creative idea with somebody from the label he was like nah we rock with you like he's those are his words we rock with you what no no i would call you more if i could and i was like well you got well you can you know you could call me anytime that you could shoot me a text and say look at this artist that i saw in africa or anything anytime but it was like oh right i'm not 25 anymore i'm not a person who's afraid to express myself i don't have a problem expressing myself i don't have a problem finding the right words to say things i don't get like sweaty and clammy when i have to talk to a person who i think is in power i don't have any of that like so the 44 year old india is willing to have a conversation with anyone about anything even if we disagree but when you put record label on it then they go well i don't talk to them you know and some like it keeps happening and i said it to him at the end of the call i said thank you for just being a great person and i was like of course he's a great person why do i think that all record label people are jerks you know that was my experience you know and so i'm having that personal experience of like no i can make a short film no i can't call the label no i can tell them i have this pet project i want to do and can we talk about it and how much money can we open up the budget like i can do these things i can just call and then also there's the creative part where like one of the things i want to do is a reimagining of stevie wonder songs not remakes reimaginings and so writing so creatively or spiritually that sounds wonderful because the stories he tells and the spiritual ideals he teaches us about in the songs it doesn't matter what kind of music you put around it yeah or i mean it matters but what if you put this music around these words like that's what i want to do but i always see things that have like that real strong spiritual element to them and record label as you can't do this that's what my mind tells me and so i'm now in the process of thinking of all these things i want to do and just dipping my toe into the first steps of doing them and i have to keep reminding myself no i can do this no i have manifested a perfect situation for myself they are going to say yes they are going to want to do this stevie wonder is going to cry when he hears like i start like now just like what do you what do i really want he's gonna cry when he hears it other people are gonna listen to it i think it's really interesting and the record label is gonna give me whatever i need to get it done you know like and so i'm always like talking myself off the ledge with those things and so it's kind of sad sometimes but i'm just like i cannot believe that that i was hurt that bad that i instill talking myself off the ledge with those things like it makes me sad sometimes but also i like where i am because i said that a moment ago i i like where i am when i remember where i am i love that you share that because you know one of the things that i would i think would have helped me earlier on in my work because i had so much fear to overcome um your spiritual work or your musician work both i mean the musician work was interesting for me because it was the path i was convinced i was supposed to go on and i was trying to knock down the doors of the music industry and i had several friends who had careers with the music industry and all they had was horror stories so in a weird way i think i had a lucky escape um if i'd have even got in um and then this the spiritual work blew up around me i would never have imagined it happening but then i kind of like you said i had to own am i gonna stand publicly for this thing that i do especially the channeling aspect which was dominant back then am i going to stand publicly for that because there's a whole load of people in my life who do not know that about me i have great relationships with them yet i know their ideology and for some of them that's going to be it's going to put a barrier between me and them and i don't want barriers that's not what i'm about so i had to go through that stuff but i think any of us that do anything especially when we look at someone like you who in our eyes has produced beautiful work that we deeply appreciate it's always interesting to hear the stuff that we go through with our own our own minds our own constructs the things that we have to constantly break through as creatives to birth these things kind of the labor pains that people don't see when they're just at the baby shower going oh what a lovely baby i love it smile you know it's like you're like yeah you should have seen the smile on my face when i was in labor three days ago so i love that you share that because from my perspective sovereignty and power have always been something you've brought when i was looking at some of your videos again i was like this is really interesting because what india brings for me you bring a lot of light and a lot of angelic energy but you back it up with a whole lot of power like it's not light airy fairy angelic no it's not that kind of it's the kind of angel that you want on your side if there's a fight it's kind of like is it you know what i mean it's like there's a there's a you're you're a fierce spiritual warrior who brings a lot of love but you there's a there's a there's a true authentic power there so for me to hear that you're now taking that wider into your work which has always been evident in the work that we know you for but that you're now expanding that same energy into new roles for you like the video editing or the oh this is how i deal with the record company that gets me excited as a fan because what i just experienced with crazy and sacred space was like oh wow i'm this is great this is i'm excited to see what india is going to do next this is like so so i'm excited for you and i'm selfishly excited for us thank you you know when you were just saying about the power i didn't feel like i was unempowered and i was pretending because you can't pretend the vibration um but i was always having to fight really hard to get to my power really hard and so there was not room left over to like feel rested and good when i got home and i was always recovering from the fight and because one thing i was not gonna do was put something out that i was embarrassed by ever not a song not a video like i just was like well you know how people say like their children make them be a better person for me my music and my career has been that like there's nothing that i won't fight through or fight through with myself for the sake of my creative work i just i'll do it if i have to look at me or look at them or fire them or fire me or i'll do it and so i'm grateful because of that because i have something that guides me but the fight was always so much that it was just like i would like to do more but i'm tired for these next two years and so the other part of that is the angelic part because what is what i feel like i do is like see the world through the eyes of my soul and i tell those stories i don't tell stories like in like the candid everyday way like you can look at the news or somebody else for that and so like even when you were talking about the ideal relationship with crazy for me i was yes it's ideal and i wanted to create a beautiful moment that made black men look like they can't care and that like that comments said protectors of women's hearts i wanted their skin to look beautiful i wanted my skin to look beautiful i wanted to create something that was beautiful because we know that utopia doesn't exist it won't by the nature of the word utopia and also that we go through we go through um moments so like romance is a moment yeah totally and then there's the real conversations and then there's the washing the dishes and then there's the you know and so i think that it's a beautiful thing to capture a moment of romance between two people and make their skin look beautiful and so even like with the songs i write like the song i am light or the ideal the ideals that i sing about in my songs the ideals it always felt like i would sing them because i believe that's who we could be even while knowing it's not who we are and and as the older i get the more i realize maybe it's not who we can be but it's still a good thing to to envision i don't know if i said that well because i said because also for me during this crazy 2020 i was going to say covet pandemic kobe bryant tornado that hit my city in january just this crazy 2020. like take your pick isn't it yeah and and there's gonna be more to pick from apparently yep um during this time i am having a personal awakening of realizing that there's a difference in just wanting to hold a vision of the best for humanity and having to believe that it's possible like there's a difference and so i i'm now at a place where i'm choosing to hold the vision and asking myself what it looks like to be who the part of me that is ready to engage more of my fierceness and more of my like shadow side more of the shadow energy not engage willing to look at it look at the shadow of energy and like see it and like um see it acknowledge it creatively i mean so whoever whatever that creation is is what i feel is brewing because i don't know that i can write little things today after this year in this last three years for me um and so that's why i called myself mush like you know the caterpillar turns to much before it turns into a butterfly because i'm now at a place where i'm like my paradigm is shifting with how i approach my art and it's not really shifted yet but i'm interested to see what comes out and also when you said angelic and power together it was something that i really need to hear because you know words mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and angelic doesn't mean light fluffy always it's uh angels are warriors too and so when you talk about that fierceness i feel like it's just kind of part of my expression naturally but i keep wondering what it's like when i embrace it that really embrace the fierceness and a friend of mine the other day bought something wonderful to my attention which i thought about but when he said it he said it when i needed to hear it he's talking about nina simone and because we know her as a warrior but she started out a quintessential jazz singer singing jazz standards singing you know playing prodigious piano and singing jazz standards she dressed in the little pencil skirts and had her hair curled and that's what she was and then the civil rights happened and something broke in her that's and that's who we know her to be and i'm not saying that i i don't know i don't need to know i'll let it emerge as it does but interesting to hear through your eyes that i've been doing it all along but also excited to see what more is there because it still does feel angelic i still do feel like i want to say my prayer and go into that space and bring the songs in i still do also maybe i'm ready to tell other stories or maybe i'll write more iron lights i don't know but i'm open and you know what the beauty of it is you know so one of the things that i learned early on from my guides who i channel and they've said this like publicly when i've done like messages from them that are recorded they say the words aren't that important they say it's the frequency and so no matter what your lyrics are in the next couple of years the frequency of your vibration when you sing is going to be encoding this experience and i i think for me you know i don't know when you last saw little things but if you just watch the last minute minute and a half of that video you might see what i saw because you know i was i was coming to have this conversation view i knew and we're gonna have to stop in a second but i knew he didn't have much time so i was like okay i just want to make sure that i tune in as much as i can to to hopefully hold the right space for this conversation for you and it was so it was one of those like soul moments for me when i saw you walking off into the crowd and i was like oh and i just i saw the powerful angel energy that has always been there and that perhaps we could see and that perhaps you're now expressing in in a wider way but i hear you i mean everything you said i think is true for me and for anybody who's alive right now in 2020 we're all being shaken loose and reborn in deeply uncomfortable and painful and sometimes traumatizing and sometimes euphoric and wondrous connected ways it's like you know welcome to the planet right now yeah can i just tell you this that when i was in my 20s i became really good friends with a clairvoyant reader and i just called him my godfather because he's much older than me but we just became good friends and so as my career started he was like someone i really leaned on he's the first person who taught me about meditation and um so funny i just remember so many things about myself this week because after the grammys and like the heartbreak of all of it because it wasn't that i didn't win it was that i was seeing how people are and i was invited to present at the oscars and i was like i'm not doing anything else and i got invited to go to this studio in jamaica where they were like you can bring your band and it was off in the mountains of jamaica so it was all flights paid for studio paid for we just want you to come and so they we had three meals a day like cooked by this wonderful chef and we had our own little cabins and we could go into the studio and make music we just hang out in jamaica and i took my godfather and we were walking to the beach and he said um it's time what do you what do you want to learn and i said i want to learn how to really be in communication with my spirit guys because i feel like i'm asked to make all these decisions and i just guess i don't want to guess i want to come from a place that means something so we started meditating on the beach that day i was 27 and um because of this long stretch of um time i've spent meditating and being able to how do i say this fellowship with my future self sometimes also i'm talking to you to be able to fellowship sometimes with my future self um i would see visions of myself in my mid 50s so exactly i was it was always 54 was the age so 10 years from now which back then it was 20 years from now and or 30 years from now back then really and i saw myself like still wearing white still wearing white head wraps because it's still what made me feel right and but the world i had like a feeling tone of how the world was and so i remember asking my godfather i said do you think there could ever come a time i forgot about this i said do you think there could ever come a time when america would not be the world's number one superpower and he was like oh yeah like at some point it's going to be china but this was you know 10 years ago and i was like you think so like could it really happen and i asked him that because it wasn't like a psychic thing like i was like superpower it was like a feeling of what the world felt as i was walking through it at 54. and so and i remember i would say to my friends we all need to travel before they close the borders for some reason but i would never think of a pandemic or a superbug like my dad's wife she's a nurse they call it superbugs i would never know anything about that but now i'm also the flip side of that is i would see things in myself like who i was and what i was capable of doing and how i interacted with young people and even like how i walked and how i stood and what my body looked like and all these things like i could see it or i could feel it and but i never could see a pathway to it because you know at 34 i would think that would be so cool like if i could be anything like assistant tyson or if i could girl like to be like a maya angelo or like somebody like it like can i be like one of them or but because my grandparents my grandmothers were like that like they had that very dignified quality they were very well spoken they served the community just and so they were that and so i thought could i be like that and so now i can kind of i'm starting to see how the world can be what i felt and i'm also seeing how i could actually be that thing that i saw but it's not just that i i knew back when i saw the vision that i could but i'm starting to see the actual pathway to it it's like even like the announcement the other day that no one can go and no americans can get into europe i was like i've been thinking this all along but i didn't know the pathway to it but again like with who i see myself as 10 years from now i was thinking of it all along but i couldn't see the pathway to it but i'm just now starting to see and feel her and it's helping me to really appreciate all of the pain because wisdom comes from that and wise is what i always always wanted to be like i wanted to be like my grandmother i wanted to be able to have an answer to be able to hear people be able to hear them beyond the words they were saying to be able to just sit with them and make them feel good whenever we went to memphis i would take my band to my great-grandmother's house she lived to be a hundred and i would take them to her house and uh they would because my band was very very most a lot of them were christians very christian-y very um and i grew up you know in a christian household but i have more expansive spiritual views just because of who i am and so it would be sometimes like a rub between me and them they would be like well the bible says this you know you have like rub but i would take them to my grandmother's house and they would just be my great-grandmother and they would always say i felt the presence of jesus and she was just in the kitchen stirring the pot like no she had us come into her bedroom and i y'all need to meet india's great-grandmother we were just sitting in her bedroom talking and it felt like the presence of angels were in that bedroom and i would just be like she was just being herself yeah and i always wanted to be like that as i became an elder and i'm just now starting to see how life is shaping me into the potential to be that person so i don't like this covey i do not like these protests they've really been hurting my heart i don't like the my own experiences of institutionalized racism and how that was cracked open i don't like it but i do like it yeah i don't like it but i do like it so it's been an interesting time interesting time i love you sharing that because you know when you were talking a minute ago uh we were talking about something a few minutes back and i just had this image of you in the coming decade and and i thought oh there's just going to be so much support for you i think it was i think it was what you said about you know the record company and being supported and and i and i thought it makes sense that that's leaving her because this coming decade i just see so much support coming in for you and you know right now maybe you're learning to allow it in at the next level but um just on a personal level i love the image that you share of yourself 10 years from now because i'm like all right if india is still going to be here in 10 years i'll still be here too then i want to see what she i'll get out of it you know what i mean because we're just having this conversation with these friends and it's like we're in these predicted transformational times and and it is so important to vision our future because a lot of our um i feel a lot of our encouragement around visioning a future for ourselves and for this planet is is being taken away from us in certain ways and i think it's really important to move against that and to to be able to vision a a brighter future for the whole planet than we're seeing right now i don't know how that's going to look and i don't think you have to try and save the world by yourself i think you just have to lean in to what you what you're doing in the beehive and what you feel compelled to do in the beehive and that way we will you know we will we will be able to bring about the best probable outcome that we could as a group so yeah i'm i'm down for seeing where you are in 10 years time and i'm happy with that for you but i also really feel the truth of that for you thank you i'm down to see where you are in 10 years too well we'll we'll check it and we'll both go foo we're still here can you believe this can i tell you my favorite quote right now yeah i i really believe it came to me out of a lot of prayer because again my personal pain has been around the awakening of my naivete because like envisioning a better future i already believed we were headed in that way not that we're not but i never saw i just believe we were better i really did believe we were better i really did um and so i've you know been in that place of prayer like well if i believe if i really believe that what else have i been believing that's not true and how can i shift my way of seeing the world where i can still see what really is here and not lose my faith like how do i do both of those because i don't want to just be like well forget all of it then i'm just going to go to the beach why why why do all this i don't want to do that either although i thought about it because why could you go to the beach it's a choice it's a choice um but the quote is from um rabindranath tagore and he said i've been saying it wrong so i wrote it down because i've been paraphrasing it i want to make sure i said it right this time he who plants a tree there she goes the one who plants trees the one who plants trees knowing that he will never sit in their shade has at least started to understand the meaning of life the one who plants trees knowing that he will never sit in their shade has at least started to understand the meaning of life and for me i need i really because i've been you know i've been having like a a dark night of the soul like really being really accepting that this is what it's been and this is what it is it's what we were headed towards it didn't matter how much you thought it's this is what it is so i choose to continue to plant trees because it's what i want to do but also it makes me want to do it with less sacrifice and more joy because the music industry required a lot of me because like you have to like push really hard you don't get anywhere yeah and now that i'm at a place where i'm more free and i can also have the number one song at radio my hope is that i can do work and be productive but deal with a lot more joy in these next 10 years just more joy i just want to do it with more joy i want to feel better while i'm doing it i still want to do it though and you will you will and i feel that really truthfully for you it's interesting the last i feel like i've never had as much joy and freedom in my work this last especially this last 18 months than ever before more than ever before oh totally but i had a lot of personal unpicking to do you know i had to like you that the tiredness or the you know sacrifice isn't quite the right word for me but yeah i had to kind of just uh shake some things loose in my personality that the the growth of the work allowed me to come to like you know without the growth of the work i would never have been able to shake it off i would never have been able to be in the right energy formula to know that i could shake it off so so i really relate to that and i think that quote is the perfect place for us to conclude even though i could talk to you for hours thank you for all the beautiful trees that you have planted they have thank you deeply helped my heart and the hearts of so many and i'm grateful you're here on this planet india ari thank you all the same to you yeah all the same to you and i want to say to you that there's a certain type of inspiration that you bring to me too because i have like the music stuff and then the spiritual stuff is behind it and you have the inverse and it's like just knowing that there's anybody walking a path anything similar to mine feels you know it's good to know that you have tried so i was happy to talk to you that had a lot of things i wanted to ask you but i was like maybe he doesn't want to talk about his personal thing but maybe for a part two sometime but thank you too for all the trees that you have planted of course yeah thank you and hey anytime but i did not want i i people will be dying to hear from you for this conversation we will do another one or you know but any time and yeah thank you so much big big love and thanks for being here thank you and so my love to stephen too and wendy too thank you [Music] you have been listening to impact the world for more of my work please visit lee harrisenergy.com this august i'm doing something a little bit different from the 18th to the 26th me and my team are bringing to you a virtual soul magic experience we've run soul magic retreats for the last four years and we would have been going to costa rica this october for our fifth one but because we can't and also because i've been feeling a calling to hand over the microphone to my guides the zs a little more of late we have created a brand new experience for you called transmissions 2020 in it there will be five live broadcasts which will be entirely channeled these broadcasts will focus on you accessing more of your magnetic energy i've chosen to broadcast all of these live because that way i know the material will be specially curated for those of you who show up to take this experience with us added to this we have for you a special music album it's called transmissions 2 and it's sound healing pieces from devorbozek with my spoken words weaved throughout and when you do sign up the first track from the transmission sound healing album will be available for you immediately so to find out more about what transmissions 2020 entails you can visit transmissions2020.com and if it resonates for you to take this special journey with us we'll look forward to welcoming you [Music] there

Channel: LeeHarrisEnergy

Views: 15,334

Rating: 4.9594135 out of 5

Keywords: India Arie

Id: NnGlbKjSlog

Length: 71min 8sec (4268 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 27 2020