Odyssey with Yendi: Lisa Hanna Unfiltered! From Miss World to motherhood; her vision for JA & more

[Music] hey everybody i'm yendi and this is odyssey with yendi on told journeys where i speak with some of my favorite people and have some shape-shifting conversations here they share their stories leaving nuggets of goodness and life lessons to motivate and inspire our own life's journeys [Music] we've all come to know and love her whether it be from the world of pageantry or the world of politics either way this multi-layered multifaceted woman is by all means one of my favorite conversations i've had lisa hannah [Music] lisa yes i you're hands down one of the most layered people i know and it's so you're exciting you're exciting to me because there's just so much to you you're so multifaceted and multi-dimensional that it's i don't know it's intriguing you intrigue me a lot i think you know that though i said why but okay i promise you'll find out but i'm so glad that we're having this chat thank you so much for sitting with me you're welcome um i want to start where it all started and it's pre miss world it's let's start at rapping let's start there because i feel like that was an area in your life where you were first presented to the world to jamaica right it's like uh here i am i'm a youngster i'm exploring and navigating life but let me just step in front of a camera what was that it actually wasn't wrapping though it was into the dojo oh well let's just go further there was a program um that jbc used to do called enter the dojo yeah where erilyn had a number of us as young karatekas that would come on and teach his self-defense and and uh it was funny because when i went back at school i was known as a karate girl so we said it was enter the dojo so nobody never played with you no no that was there that was so it was it was then and then rapping came shortly after maybe third fourth form and it was a number of us that were doing it but at that time jamaica was very different you didn't have a range of media hoses and you didn't have social media so the one tv station people looked forward to local programming yes so you had young people that were interested in what was happening in society and we had one tv station at the time so it was it was the only it was the only game in town and then in a short space of time miss world happened yeah did you want to do pageantry no i didn't yeah i was actually i was a tomboy and i was walking in a plaza and laurel williams saw me yeah and said you know you should enter miss jamaica and i looked at her like why but my mother used to make clothes and she sewed so she would use me as a model and several other persons so i was exposed to um the world of fashion so i would at that time in jamaica you also had fashion shows people used to pay money to go to fashion shows and you had the big designers who used to parade so you had people knew models in jamaica so you had um you had the debbie whittinghams you had the angela kneels and especially at the time models who went away and did well jamaicans were very very interested in them so fashion shows were a big deal bev cork althea lang i remember when althea busted onto the scene with essence i mean it was just like wow so i think from that perspective but no the beauty contest thing was was not me at all and uncomfortable were you in that space i was very uncomfortable because i wasn't the i wasn't the person in high school that followed these things you know there was there was always young women who did right and young women who did the fashion shows and the pulse at the time i think the pulse was it fashion model right they were just coming out with that and there were a number of people who were now interested in doing that no i wasn't i was the prefect head girl student council house captain business long time no i was a tomboy so i wasn't really and i wasn't considered you know i never did the evening i was gonna say i was i didn't do the parties and the the different things so i don't think anybody really eventually thought i would have done it and then i did it and you know it was it was fun and it we traveled jamaica and and even at that time mr jamaica was a really big deal yeah for sure and um between that time i think when winning in september by november i was miss world so things changed trust me drastically at 18. talk about that change because one it's already a space that you're not the most comfortable in two at eighteen we think we know but we really don't know nothing we're just navigating no man i knew you knew yeah i i just first saw for example i remember we were we were on our way to south africa and um we had to stop in london for a number of things and i'll never forget it the there was a group in the hotel and they pulled the file alarm yeah and it was in it was a reality check to see what women representing beauty at three o'clock in the morning running down piccadilly circus looked like i'll say it like that the only one who had her suitcase was dressed for the airport with her money her passport and her handbag and her carry-on was me you are ready i listen i'm born and i remember looking around the room when they realized it was a false alarm and going oh so that's what miss colombia looks like at three o'clock in the morning oh shady no and in a nice way but but you realized what went and used there are layers and layers and layers and i thought what am i doing i hope it i don't fit this this thing but then that's probably exactly why you fit it that's probably exactly why it was fitting for you to be miss world because the representation was less of a like maybe pretentious and this is just but it was also a different time of the world the world was was shifting at that time as well where we were going to have the pageant south africa was changing politically and you also had the for the you know the freedom of nelson mandela they were not going into democratic elections they were the plo and israel were looking at peace treaties with clinton so the world was looking was was different so here comes um a radical miss jamaica here comes the first miss black south africa right here comes miss lebanon and miss israel and and and you know at the time lebanon was held for questioning when she got back because she was having conversations with israel it was a very very different time so i think the judges themselves having a situational awareness about what the world was was also looking for a difference and who could also carry a message and um i guess yeah and it was at that time you didn't have all of the different many competitions so you just heard who was in the top 10 on the night that was it and so if you didn't make that top 10 you exited stage left and the top ten stayed on the stage so well no exits for you hey ended up on top um that then shoots lisa into not a jamaican public life but global public life sorry um what how do you feel like it shaped you having to grow up under a microscope oh well i pretty much grew up i mean from you were 13 i pretty much grew up in jamaica with in in front of tv right so being on the world stage wasn't difficult i i've always had a very steady compass internal compass so nothing i'm not flappable right and i don't have principles of convenience it wasn't as if it was going to change who i was that is a word of convenience and so it was easy to ease into it and i think the miss world organization recognized that you could drop me in anywhere in the world and i would have prevailed the circumstances i think when when women lose sight of who they are is when their ego subsumes everything else and i think that's that's where you have to gauge it because there's a lot of adoration and perks and you know false promises that are being thrown your way and you have to you have to be able to decipher what is real from what is what isn't right and i was i was fortunate to be at that time because there was there was not a lot of disturbance in terms of noise so even though with social media and everything is is so dynamic and so quick so we had a better i think option of being able to navigate the world at that time because you did it on your own time you didn't feel pressured that you had to hold if you weren't if you were 24 and you weren't declaring world peace you know it was okay you know if you if you were now 25 and you hadn't already had two degrees beneath your name and you had three tv shows or you didn't have this many followers it was okay you know and i liked it then well it's funny because i remember vividly we were on a flight together years ago actually we didn't run our back and lisa didn't run out front and lisa said confirm it she said come on come sit beside me and i remember you saying to me about the element of mystery and the need for there to be a bit of mystery how is that for you now with this new social space with the balance of sharing but still holding what is there and sacred as just that um and still having a bit of mystery but i needed to know that i don't waste time and angle like no no um well i'm five years away from 50. so it's it's i think my my god i'm good i'm sorry i have seen a lot done a lot um raised a lot of children including my own and seen them do well so my patience level with myself is is intact and when i say to women you know reserve a part of you that's that's that only you can touch don't let anyone else be able to touch it is simply that whether it's a part of your soul whether it's a part of your internal functioning but the minute you give everything away about who you are then you're not able to have that peace and understanding with yourself so you have to be able to nurture that and when you sit in your quiet space you can nurture it but it's that part of you that makes you glow and and you can tap into because if you don't then you just become a part of the rat race and everybody can pull you in in different parts of the direction i think when i say to some women they think it's so i'm relating to a man and woman relationship i'm not no it's not a man-in-one relationship it's really an internal functioning and you can build on it but it's it's for it's that part of you my husband says it's it's my secret but it's not a secret it's just that mystery you read a lot i do um what is it about reading that feeds lisa the way it does um well first of all it exercises my brain yeah and i think in a world and it it's disciplining so in a world that is so visual having the discipline to sit down with a book and be comfortable with it is just exercises my self-discipline and also tolerate other opinions because i'm i'm in a career where everybody feels that i have the answer and i don't i don't necessarily have the answer to everything i'm glad he touched on that because or i should have the answer i feel like you've ventured into a space that has to be one of the most rewarding spaces to be in because you get to serve and see growth and progress and change and development but it is so unforgiving and it's such a double-edged sword oh she's a double-edged machete because i know there's a lass in the vehicle why don't i don't leave my last anywhere but she's not lying there's legit alas in the vehicle but it's uh no it's never enough it is never enough your absolute best for someone is still not going to be enough how do you still maintain the focus of what drives you how do you still get up and want to do it um because it must be hard i see it from the outside and it i'm i'm yeah the jamaicans are the most resilient people but they are in many ways frustrated so i come to the table and um i've learned in my 13 years of representation listening and being accessible is sometimes the best approaches and it is persons like myself that perhaps because we are accessible and you have other social workers who are accessible etc it's the thin line between perhaps and and this might be the extreme perverse way of looking at it between social anarchy right and just somewhere to vent right so that's perhaps why you don't have the kind of protests and uprisings that you see like the arab spring and in other places in the world because as a small population jamaicans are able to you know whether rail are perceived but they can touch us they can touch their leaders they can touch their pastor they can touch their social worker they can touch somebody who can give them some solace and some an ability to exhale but it's we need more resources right you know as a country we need to grow the economy and grow people's per capita income so that they have and they can afford their cost of living and be aspirational in their in their desire for life everybody should be aspirational and want something better that is not something that you just talk i know you walk that walk the aspirational walk the projects that are being put in place to make your base example uh i i mean that's like real goals happening you know i know that you are big on the concept of us exporting we have things to offer across borderline there is a misconception between import substitution and an export driven policy and people sometimes misunderstand it because they said well you know we need to grow and feed ourselves but and that's important but feeding yourselves won't grow your economy that's only three million people you have to feed yourselves and feed the world so ask yourselves should we be important what we can produce efficiently and also growing for the rest of the world what they need and and putting the country in that position and it's going to take in the same way that you revitalized the tourism industry you have to know go all in if you really want to do agriculture right and have the value added and the problem with politics is that politics and the tribal nature of jamaica's politics makes the listening of what i have to say by the other side there's a dissonance and a disconnect and what has to happen is if you want jamaica to prevail you have to plan for the next 10 20 30 years and say to each other look these are the things that are non-negotiable if we really want to do this it's across party lines here is my thing how hard is it to navigate those political lines because unfortunately politics is just politics politics but then nation and people first and foremost and i know i can i can think of maybe three people off the top of my head who is in that space who i can be like yeah man no they're for people and nation first it's not about securing or locking down a seat well i think so i think i don't need the power the title or the yeah it's certainly is not the best paying job in the world but i'm jamaican first and i would like the jamaican passport to be formidable and a premier passport so that people don't have to line up at the us embassy amen and that they don't have to line up to at the british embassy when you present a jamaican passport but you have to do things to get there and we're too small as a country to have the kind of tribal politics that we have and it's it's it's it's both it's the basis of both but it's also the uncommitted yet engaged voter that has to understand what it really means to have political will so it's it's it's one thing to say well we don't trust politicians so we don't like politicians that we're not going to vote but what is your political will what is what's your passion so if you if you were to transfer political will to passion what really is your passion do you want to see jamaica grow don't it don't you want to see it what is that segment of the population prepared to do to hold people like me accountable the musicians try to do it and you know the protege is a chronic abaca the jessie royals the lila aikes the janines etc who are saying look you know bojo saying look we are the vanguards and here's what we don't like bob marley used to do it peter tosh used to do but what are what's your generation doing you know the psoj is one thing and the manufacturers association of jamaica and the exporters association of jamaica but these are bodies you guys have such a potent ability to hold leaders accountable if you fashioned yourself with passion and i think more than ever right and i think that is what i would like to see in in jamaica and not follow things blindly and not just follow cliches and not just follow you know things ad hoc right topics just you know that sound good what was the thing that made you decide that you wanted to not just walk and live and be here on one side of the fence but you actually wanted to be a part of policy making you want to be a part of legacy making i didn't look at it that way okay um and i so when i sat down to look at really what i wanted to do in life it was helping people and and my life as always whether it was my mother with world hunger project or jamal or some kind of volunteer work so it was always about people and this i thought was the best opportunity to be able to do it and i i liken it it it's funny how the electorate has shifted and in in many ways different things have shifted i was listening to an interview with lizzo the other day and i really like her and she said look you know after she won the grammy and stuff she said look i've been singing this kind of music forever that's right the world was she's been there she said but the world just wasn't listening and but something snapped you know fat shaming became a bad thing women were more empowered about feeling better about their bodies um it was okay to be more natural so the beauty industry also shifted right and it's just what what you and others and what i'm witnessing is the same thing in terms of our electorate and the demands and what's necessary so the electorate is very very different now in terms of what their demands and likes and needs are but they say it and there is an expectation of entitlement which is bordered on an impatience right so my son's generation is look mom i really don't have the patience to for this and they're brighter right they're more intelligent much more exposed much more worldly worldly they get it they're sharper so and they can argue things logically and rationally so you can't spin things right so the concept of of the politician spinning is not one that's going to go down very well the best thing you can do is is be authentic as a matter of fact that only puts an alien coffin in this day and age in this day and age and they can they can smell right through it absolutely right so i think it's it's it's important that your generation holds a support i don't know why you're separating us because because i tell people if i tell people when i met you and your hero was out to hear and you were playing with your dollies and that also changed um it was pre-product pre-pre black girl hair product but it was she had all his hair you couldn't even see yandy if you had all of this we used to live around by hope pastor that's right i remember you came together by your dog you came to buy a dog i remember vividly i was actually bursting i was exploding because you were the first time i ever in my life came in contact with someone i saw on tv and i thought it was the best thing since sliced bread and cooked food and i was like she's in my backyard i'm going to die you're very complex you have no idea very complex not as much but as much as you're complex too you are i think you wear your heart on your sleeve i think you just are who you are and you feel what you feel and what he sees what you get i really feel that way you get yeah um it won't be it won't be anything else there will be there are no surprises that you're gonna necessarily get from who i am i think perhaps if you have never seen that brutally honest side of me then you might want to just tell the truth from the get-go but other than other than that i'm um thing but and also i i will um [Music] i can defend myself so i'm not afraid of walking into situations and one of the things that i hope for jamaica and women i i've seen so much abuse of women in this country psychological abuse um financial abuse of women just talking to them and one day i really really hope that we can get to a point where women themselves have the courage and that will take the society as well buttressing and putting systems in place to make some who are not necessarily as confident as others get to that realm of feeling that they their empowerment is comes from inside them and there's there's nobody else that's going to make you feel happy or empowered the the beauty about life is that when you feel empowered and you you meet up another person who enhances that value then that's when it's beautiful but you can't depend on somebody else for your for your happiness because when that person goes you're going to be unhappy but in general happiness cannot be an external factor it just can't it's going to have to be something that can come from from you um how much of a big job do you think you have been raising our son in this space on the back of what you're saying very big yeah he's been he's been pretty awesome though in in terms of getting it and getting it coming from uh perhaps a divorced home but he's i met both myself and his father have really worked to make sure that he's he's solid and my husband no has really played a major role in alex's life which i'm very very grateful for and they have a beautiful relationship but sons in this day and age as mothers you have to be honest with them talk to them about sex talk to them about feelings talk to them about sensitivity and it's okay to to do certain things and also talk to them about the responsibility of being a man because there is a responsibility that comes with being a man and the things that are important in in taking on those commitments when you decide to take them on and also not waste in your life there are no wastemen around here no don't feel that you're going to come and and not be productive and you can live under my roof and be undisciplined in discipline um and think that because you are okay and the space around you is okay it doesn't belong to you that's right go and figure it out and make it on your own and don't use me um and he knows he's i said look if you get arrested you're going to spend the night in jail you're going to especially if it if you do something that is unwarranted so he i think mothers have to be really loving yeah of their sons talk to them spend time with them understand what's going on up here because there's so much peer pressure and it's not easy no because of just all the influences that are out there and figure out what they want to do i mean i think alex knew from he was young he was doing the university excuse me experience that's what he wanted to do but there are so many different things now in the world and so many different careers that you can look into in terms of entertainment art culture fitness and don't limit them and we live in a space nowhere it's you don't have to be going a traditional room no we really live in a space where people are much more free to express their life passions and make careers out of passions because the space has supported you to do it and if he wants to if you he wants to be an actor i mean analyze a space so you have netflix you have itunes you have hulu you have stars and prime you have all of these spaces that are also now in production so the the the chance is perhaps of of your child getting something in animation or acting or a production assistant or something like that versus getting a job as a partner at a firm at a law firm is actually probably higher on the entertainment side so don't don't limit their options in terms of dreaming right and and pushing them in that area and i that's what i'd like to see happen in the jamaican school system too you know we need more performance performance arts high schools where persons can dance and draw and learn film and photography and rather than just the traditional roots which are for some people are boring they don't learn that way absolutely so you know for me i feel like i was really fortunate so at st andrew high there was no dance group or dance club when i was there and i remember with my rambunctious self going to the principal and saying to her that there is this club that club this club that club no space for people who are artists and there is no outlet for people who express themselves as artists and she was just like well what do you propose and i said there should be a dance group there should be a drama this there should be a good and she was like well head it up and come back to me well you know i did that i started the dance troupe there i went back to her and i was like we have a dance troupe we have x amount of members i have access to costumes if you ever need anything because at that time jamaica school of dance i could tap into my resources there because i was out you wanted did you entertain there in jcdc in prep school i did in high school no because that space never existed until i literally was in fifth form and i was just like i would play my whole high school life i know the one dance in my school this all made no sense lisa i kid you not from i said that to mrs reed we perform graduation we perform price giving we perform um we call it whatever um servicing of the morning shows us like that andy phillips report to the office but it felt so good to have a principal who listened yeah who gave who allowed me was like that but she was also disciplined but she was disciplined and that's a thing we associate artists with being free-for-all and free-spirited and yes there's a freedom of expression everything in the world is art now everything what is the world without art but everything is art by virtue of you looking at your new phones the cars you need artists absolutely it's all design-based it's all creative so everything is so beautiful on on social media yeah you know the curation of some people's sites and websites and everything is visual so i would i would say in raising your children and um those of you know who are you know have children who are still in prep school or primary school it's it's it's allowing them to be children too and giving them the space to just idealize about life and inculcating self-discipline it's it's one thing to give them all this freedom but let them know that the world is not designed to be participatory right it's designed to be goal-oriented so you'll get the certificate for participation in prep and prep school and primary school but when it comes to the real world unless you're getting a tag for fifth place you're not no you're not it's not you're not going to get a for effort you're going to get a for deliverable that's right so if you don't deliver you're not you're not gonna get paid yeah so that's that's so you have to start that's one thing i remember saying to to alex look you know you have to deliver yeah you love our culture that's not uh that's not a noting that is a long time this is a long long time something tell me a bit about your love for our music space but also is our dance all right getting but it's a culture thing i know that's about you um when e-commerce came out with water them it was my first fortified and then i started just collecting music so i'm a big music collector and then my first sting i had my sister and my friend well they were older my sister is much older but so they snuck me out that time sting you say hell at the stadium and the first thing i went to them buckley stage and this was this was lisa i must have been like 11 or 12. but i loved it i i'm sorry did your mother know you were there no she didn't know i was and when she found out that you were there she didn't because my sister when you have a oh let's start it no proper coverage head back and for my sister my sister is completely opposite to me so she is a party animal and she's to this day my sister is a party animal so she'll come to jamaica and you don't see her and she can't get me to go out right but she would i remember my first time going into epiphany i must have been like 13. oh my and my sister would sneak me into places i got an understanding of because i loved music yeah but i wasn't uh i never i didn't drink i never smoked i wasn't one of these young people i never needed artificial stimulants for ecstasy i still don't oh aw so i never needed artificial stimulus no and i still don't i can get very high on myself so i didn't need so music for me and going to the dance hall and so i from high school i knew boujou and beanie and and all of those different so here is what we're going to direct i am going to this is my favorite part of doing this right because no one knows that something is happening or coming right so i am going to play something for you okay and you have to choose whether you want to tell me who the artist is and the title or sing the next line okay just don't go into like i can tell you who not to like don't go into go ahead all right ready okay hold on i'm not very good with this game but okay really you might surprise yourself okay you do this with everybody [Music] that's right i actually do and when people least expect it all right hold on you like to dance i do do you never knew that part actually like one time i didn't see you do a little um you know you're running a video today my true true all right i'm going to play this one this one you have to give me okay um the next line okay all right that's the title i'm going to pause it and you have to give me the next line [Music] girl from reema girl from jungle [Music] yo you really joking who's your favorite artist um in terms of dance already yeah would you roger banter what do you like about butcher his his range his him can go from waterman to shiloh to trust no he can his lyrics are deep informative and he stays relevant he's always ahead of the curve and i i respect that about him and he's been you know would you come in from fur from stamina right now to trust into a new album is you have to get a boy you have to give him props absolutely absolutely and so um i love my morgan heritage jessie royals protege you know chronix i love that whole generation coming up i love all of my old-time dancehall artists them i love my sham spice i could i just you know we have different different moments for different people and then i'm you know brothers johnson quincy jones i listened to a lot of miles davis i listened to a lot of cassava and tvice i listened to a lot of music and i've been collecting music you know fellow cootie from i was a child so if you ask people about afrobeats no they have no idea who fellow cootie was but fellow cooties is really is a person who started that whole movement and brought for me i'm learning something here yeah so afrobeats now is new but if you really are a connoisseur of deep african music you have to go and buy and know who fellow cootie was i want to look that up if you know anything about me i'm totally going to look at it so i could if you look i have thousands of albums lps cds cassette tape i use a bill cassette tape for people you know and when the boss saying yeah for real little pencils and then or if he liked you he would give you music on a cassette i have to rewind and start again i it's not everything is just so easy now even in your car you can just use your finger and scroll to where you want to and and stuff oh when a cd player did come out i have to find a way for by the the jack for pushing it oh my gosh i remember that the cat had to go in and accord came out and then there was a jack that you had to put into your disc man or something like that not true are you playing the music oh my god no my daughter will look at a city and be like what's that yeah i'm going to say a word and i want you to give me the first thing that comes to your mind food practical alexander unconditional love southeast saint anne sales miss world glamorous lisa stoick what's the one thing that people least expect about lisa what is a massive part of who she is i guess how domesticated i am i i there's so many layers to me i mean every time somebody sees me pick up a broom and start sweeping they're like you do this yeah i'm a i'm um if you speak to alex and richard they'll tell you that she is a clean freak iron your sheets on the bed and your sheets the type of person but i don't i think what would surprise people most is how [Music] i guess gentle i am i'm a gentle soul and i can go from zero to 300 in a second but i come right right back but the heart of who i am is extremely gentle i think people see me and think that she's so intimidating but i'm i'm not far from it you're not but i do feel like if you don't come to you correct you're going with me to feel this big yo okay it's the look it's the like uh welcome preparing come prepared it's it's it's it's come prepared um know yourself before you say before you step into a particular thing and i'm if you are i'm brutally honest so if we're working on something together if if you have to understand that what i'm saying to you is not personal but if you and take responsibility for it but i'm brutally honest and if you can't manage that then you can't hunt in the same pack with me oh is it lioness no you just can't you if you're if you're easily um if you're too sensitive you can't hang out with me it's it's it's not going to work when this whole thing is said and done what do you want to be remembered for and known for i actually don't want i actually don't want a funeral i don't want no i actually have a lignum variety tree that i planted at home and i've told alex and richard that if i go before them just burn me and throw me on it i don't want anybody to be you can't put my name on it i don't want to be remembered i don't want to um i don't want anybody speaking over my name it's it's do you feel like you're that's the one spoken for itself yes i think your work speaks for itself and i think that's perhaps one thing that people don't realize if once you start i actually don't like the limelight so if you even come to my constituency i drive myself there are no entourages there's and i push people forward so no when i'm gone i'm gone you can remember the you can remember me if you want to talk about me but i don't know that i want to be eulogized in any way at all do you feel like your aim is to leave whatever you have leave your cards on the table while you're here yeah you should you should see my i'm not trying to call your bluff yeah you should see who i am from from long time from coming from afar and the legacy really are the lives that you touch so if you can make somebody's life better and certainly your children your children should come up better than you and leave something there i'm just here for a moment so i'm my work is not for i'm not doing it to to get anything from it other than than leaving the place better than i found it so if that happens then i'm good i don't i don't want anything else i'm happy nice i like that thank you you're welcome a lot you're welcome [Music] you

Channel: Yendi Phillipps

Views: 335,987

Keywords: Miss World, Lisa Hanna, Miss Jamaica, Yendi Phillipps, Yendi Phillips, Odyssey With Yendi, Motivational, Jamaica, Jamaican Youtuber, Miss Universe, Lisa Hana, PNP, Member of Parliament, Conversations, Inspiration, Life Lessons, Yendi, Soul Food, Deep Conversation

Id: wP43lSNeFV4

Length: 45min 33sec (2733 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 14 2020