I am not my hair
Serene Rivers (in the middle) going to high school homecoming with her cousin and friend.
Growing up as a child, in a Cincinnati ghetto, I would spend my summer nights singing Fu-La-La-La loudly in the middle of our court with other children as the adults would yell for us to shut up. Shortly after we would be called in the house by our parents to get ready for bed. I could say that my love for music, the way it unified people and its profound ability to shift a persons mood began in the ghetto as I was a young girl with a press n’ curl but that would be only half of the story.
That little girl didn’t know that music ran deep in my veins. I had a whole host of ancestors standing behind me that used music to heal others and that performed music for others on a larger scale. My father’s mother sung with a group called Peaches and Herb and my grandfather on my mother’s side was inducted into The Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame for a song he had written and performed as a young man with a group called “The Students”.
When I graduated from Howard University and decided to get serious about making music I thought I was rebelling against the mediocre mold of my family line. The truth is I was just answering the deeper calling of my ancestral DNA.
I was a little girl with a press n’ curl, then I got a relaxer, then I spent years being un-ba-weaveable. Around the same time that I decided to get serious about making music I decided to wear my hair just as God made it grow out of my head. Just a year before recording my first studio album I decided to loc my hair up.
The type of music I made went through similar transitions as my hair. At one point in my early college “un-ba-weaveable” years I wanted to be a rapper. I was recording a rap in a classmates dorm room studio when he found out I could sing and politely let me know that I needed to stick to that. Initially I sung songs of an urban” slightly “hood” nature but this slowly transitioned along with my hair into songs that had a humanitarian focal point or undertone.
My musical style is still unfolding and morphing. The deeper I dive into my roots the more settled and expansive I become. I make music to help people who are committed to their own self-actualization like you. I want to accompany and inspire you in many ways on your journey!
To listen to my last self titled CD Serene Rivers click here.
Thank you for being a part of my journey!
Many blessings to you!
There are no comments yet, add one below.
Leave a Reply