Life Is Not a Fairy Tale (15 page)

Other little things in life, like walking on the beach and admiring the magnitude of the ocean, makes me see God’s power. The fact that I’m still breathing and waking up every day and being able to get myself up and moving is a blessing. I thank God for the financial rewards now, but I have so much more than that to be thankful for.

Now I want to be
wise
so I can still take care of myself and not have to rely on just money to make everything happen. Wisdom is not what is expected from celebrities or recording artists who came from nothing. They expect us to get money and spend it all up on furs, cars, diamonds, and mansions. All that crazy stuff in the videos.

People ask me what I spend my money on, and I tell them that it is important to me to take care of my family. I have been asked, “Why do you feel you have to do it?” It’s not that I have to do it, but I want to do it because it’s the promise that we made to each other on Montlieu Avenue just a few short years ago. I just happen to be the one who got blessed first. We were all in it together—my mama and daddy and brothers, we were all travelin’ and singin’. That’s all we did for most of my childhood. At times, we all slept in the same dark room together. We ate grits, bacon, eggs, bologna, and corned beef hash for days at a time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We
struggled
together, and although we were young, my brothers and I had grown-folk struggles. When we had no hot water in the house, we used to yell down to the kitchen, “Boil me some water so I can bathe!” Everybody used to huddle up together to keep warm when there was no heat. When I think back to those days, it brings tears to my eyes. My tears are tears of joy because we survived and we never have to be out of heat or water and now we all have our own rooms. I was the youngest, but I would always say, “Man, one day we’re going to make it! Watch when one of us gets somethin’ and we’re not going to have to go through this anymore.”
I meant that.
We were normal kids: We wanted to go places and we wanted to have things. All of those memories of growing up remind me of
wanting.
That much wanting
hurts.

As crazy as it sounds, even if I hadn’t made that promise to my family, I would still be doing exactly the same thing I’m doing for them, because I would be lost without them. They are all that I have ever had. My house was meant to be filled with family. That’s why we all worked so hard to have something; it wasn’t only my efforts. It just turns out that I made it first. By giving the prize to me, it was really for all the Barrinos as a reward for all those years of strugglin’ together. My brothers missed out on basketball and football games, proms and nights out at the drive-in. I missed out on joining the cheerleading squad and track meets. We missed out on everything that most kids our age were able to do because we were out singin’ and performin’ and trying to satisfy our hunger for music.

My situation with my family is not without problems. It is hard enough to be me, wanting so much that I never had before. Imagine a whole family that has never had anything and now being able to give them what they really want and need, in addition to my own wants and needs. I’m trying to get my family to see that it really ain’t about the bling, but that is a hard thing to show people when the bling is all that they have ever dreamed about.

My family has very little formal education and only now are we starting to see the light about how important education is. My father is a certified truck driver. My grandmother’s husband, Ray, got him a job with his trucking company so that he could take care of his family. My mother started her nursing education, became a certified nursing technician (CNT) but never stayed in school so she could become a registered nurse. Because our family has such a passion and talent for music, it has always been that we are a little stubborn about working in other areas that don’t involve music. Of course my parents had to do other things because they had mouths to feed, but my father did manage to get us involved in music despite his trucking job, and despite the fact that we should have all been in school learnin’, but more than anything else, he just wanted us to sing. As the kids in my family have all have grown up, we honestly didn’t, and still don’t, have much interest in anything that doesn’t involve music.

Whenever I come home to Charlotte or High Point, my cell phone constantly rings with people giving me a list of needs, wants, and loan requests. My problem is that I always end up giving what they ask for, but it stresses me out, because I can’t afford to do all the things that everyone wants for much longer. It seems no matter what I say, it continues to be the same thing, more calls asking for more things. I was trying to help them so that they could help themselves, but it isn’t working.

I bought Tiny a small car so he wouldn’t have to ask people to take him to his job. I wanted him to feel independent and free of worry about beggin’ people to take him to work. Tiny and a lot of other people back home have a hard time keeping a job because they don’t have cars and it makes it hard to be reliable about getting to work. But Tiny has the music hunger and so he won’t get a job unless it is music related. Tiny is stubborn. You remember him, brushing his hair on stage when we were younger. That is the same man who won’t get a job because he believes that he has got to concentrate on his music to make it happen someday.

That makes me look at this hunger for music that we all have. I think the hunger comes from a need to feel like we are succeedin’ at somethin’. With limited education and limited resources, music is the only thing that makes us feel like we’re a part of the world. It makes us feel worthy, because it comes to us so naturally. Music is
our
gift to the world. It’s what we do. That’s why I didn’t push Tiny much because his hunger for music is the same as mine. The only difference is that I got a shot before him and he hasn’t gotten his shot—
yet.

The truth is that I love my family more than anything in my life. But when I come home to North Carolina, there is sometimes a pressure I feel of having to make everyone happy.

Helping the people who I grew up with in High Point is very important to me. If a few small moments in my life had gone differently, I could still be there in High Point, sitting next to my family on the couch and watching some other girl win
American Idol.
But handing out money on the streets is not really a way to help anyone. I can only help those who want to help themselves. That is why I reached back and took my brother Rico and my homegirl Aseelah on the road with me as background singers. The experiences on the road with me are career-makin’ experiences that will take them into their own music careers. They are gaining experience performing and getting exposure to how the music business works. Because they have traveled the world with a signed artist, they will always get work with other signed artists. I wish I could do something that
real
for everyone.

I have a lot of dreams that I want for myself and my family. I want the people in my family know how much I love them and how I remember those nights on Montlieu Avenue, when we didn’t have anything but the music. I keep working and doing shows so that we can have all the things that we deserve. I’m just hoping that soon the other hungers for those material things will wear off and we will soon be in plannin’ mode and not
wantin’
mode.

I’m saving money, but I haven’t invested yet other than buying a house. For now, I just want to save as much as I can, take care of my family, and learn more about how to manage money. One thing I know for sure is we are not going to look back. We’re not going back to where we started.

One thing I do love is a bargain. I still shop at Target and Wal-Mart. If I could say anything to you, I would say be wise about how you spend your money. Don’t buy designer clothes and fancy cars that you can’t afford. Look for sales and look for bargains. If I could be at home more, you better believe that ’Tasia would be at yard sales. If I see a yard sale while on the road, I still stop if we have time. Going to yard sales reminds me that I am still a country girl and I don’t have to splurge and spend a lot of money to feel like I got something.

I’m inspired by the bling-bling celebrities who have moved beyond the initial attraction of the bling and are now creating enough money to live comfortably without wasting money. I am inspired by Oprah Winfrey, who turned her broadcasting career into a television and publishing empire in addition to being an award-winning actress who always gives plenty of money to help other people. Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Halle Berry does great movies, acts, and is a major model and film producer. Jay-Z, Puff Daddy, and Will Smith are smart men who turned hip-hop into fashion, restaurants, sports ownership, sneaker design, endorsements, and TV production. Someday, I want ’Tasia to be on that list.

Of course, I worry that I don’t have the smarts to do things in business like they did even though it’s what I want so much. All of these people at least finished high school, and I haven’t even got my GED. I pray and ask God to give me the time and patience to finish my education, and the guidance to spend my money wisely, so there is always money in the bank. I have dreams of starting businesses. I want to open up a beauty shop that also has nail services. I have always wanted a restaurant and a club with live music, a small dance floor, and an open-mic night where musicians and poets can do their “thang.” Sometimes, I even dream of a shoe store, because I love shoes so much. I would specialize in exotic European shoes. I also want to pay off my grandmother’s church mortgage, which would be another family asset. And, because my grandmother has a daycare center in her home, I would love to expand it. All of my businesses would make jobs for my friends and the other people in High Point, who say there is no work available.

I have a lot of dreams. I must sound silly to you, but three years ago if I had told you I would be writing a book, I had traveled the world, and was the 2004 American Idol you and I would both have said that I was crazy. Having dreams are the first part of making things happen. Dreaming big means that you can think you can. If you are not dreamin’ big, then you are just sleepin’ on life.

W
hat is a hootchie mama?
I’m sure you’re wonderin’. And even though the term originated in the ghetto, it’s a term that can be used all over the world for women who use their bodies to get what they want from men. This is a world problem; it’s not a ghetto problem. It’s sad to say, but women are trained to use their bodies and their looks to get attention and love from men. It’s much easier for women who have no education or financial support to fall into this kind of thinking. The truth is, this is not a good place to be. And the reason that it’s not a good place to be is because being totally at the mercy of a man and dependent on him takes away any belief that you have in yourself. You start to believe that you can’t make it on your own. I felt like I had to be like that with J.B. until I went to
American Idol.
Even though J.B. was a good man and he was good to me, I don’t want any of my sistas to ever have to feel like they can’t do it on their own.

I have been fortunate to travel around the world, and although I don’t know much about the cultures of other places, I do know that women everywhere want the attention of a man and they show it by the way they dress. In the ghetto where I come from, big butts and tight jeans are the way to get (certain) men’s hearts, but the need for love is something that has no specific neighborhood or language.

You may be wondering why I would even put this chapter in my book. Who cares about hootchie mamas anyway? I care. And this chapter—and this book—is for everyone who thought they had me and other hootchie mamas figured out because they thought they knew about us from the media. But they don’t know our hearts. I want everyone, especially young people, to know that every human being is not necessarily what they look like. I named this chapter this way to get your attention. This chapter is not about hootchie mamas, really; this chapter is really about how they came to be and who they are on the inside.

The name “hootchie mama” comes from TV. Hip-hop and R&B videos always have the girls who don’t have on enough clothes, shakin’ their butts and hanging all over a man who has three other woman hanging on him too. In the videos, it seems that none of the women are upset about the other women hanging on the man. This image is what makes a hootchie mama think it’s OK to share their man. It isn’t.

Hootchie mamas are women who are wearin’ too few clothes and too much jewelry. Hootchie mamas were put into those music videos to make the men in the video feel like they are desirable. Hootchie mamas ain’t real. They ain’t real people, they’re just an image that has been taken too far. Hootchie mamas come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. When I’m on the road, I see lots of young girls wearin’ tight stuff and showin’ too much skin. Their boyfriends seem to like it, but I’m sure their fathers and mothers don’t. I have heard little girls tell me that they had to sneak out to go to my concert and that their mothers would die if they saw what they were wearing. I used to think to myself, I’m not happy with what you’re wearing either, but it’s not my place to say anything. Except for in the pages of my book!

I don’t even like the term “hootchie mama” because a lot of people using that term could be called the same thing. It’s a term that’s based on the way someone looks—how they are dressed—but I know a lot of hootchie mamas and I know what is in their hearts. Most importantly, I know myself and I ain’t no hootchie mama—but some people would have called me that back in the day. The hootchie mamas I know are kind and generous. They are funny and optimistic. They are concerned about their kids as much as anyone else is. They just think that they don’t have any other way of gettin’ attention and making things better for themselves. Hootchie mamas wish that their children could become doctors and lawyers, just like every other mother wishes for her child. A hootchie mama’s problem is that she probably doesn’t know any doctors or lawyers, and if she does, it’s usually not in a social way. The doctors she knows may be the ones who told her that she was pregnant for the first, second, or third time. The lawyers she knows may be the ones who defended her baby daddy. These lawyers are the ones who break the news that her baby daddy is going to prison because of what he did last year.

The hootchie mamas that I know from back home are proud, despite what they look like to everybody else. Despite that they have always lived in the projects, and always got welfare and can’t get off it because they have no education, it seems smarter to not work and keep havin’ babies, then going to get a minimum-wage job. The cost of day care is more than a minimum-wage job earns. These women stand tall and proud and most of them have found some level of self-esteem despite their circumstances. They believe that they are as good as anyone else. Very few hootchie mamas realize that they are not just like everybody else, or maybe they are. I think the truth of being a hootchie mama is not even the way that you dress or how much skin you are showing. I think being a hootchie mama is an attitude. It is a way of thinking about men and how much we think we need them to feel good about ourselves.

My days of being a hootchie mama started probably in the eighth or ninth grade. Those are the days that I was friskin’ around and trying to get the attention of other guys, but mostly B. From me watching those music videos, I could see what all girls at that age see—to get a man you have to be sexy and being sexy meant taking off your clothes, or wearing as few clothes a as possible. I was fourteen and watching those videos instead of listening to my mama. I was seeing those handsome, well-dressed, cool men on the TV and wishing that they were real. I was wishing that they lived in High Point, so I could see them and experience them. I was feelin’ frisky and wished for them or anyone who looked like them. Every teenage girl has the same problem. The magazines and the TV shows are always promoting sex—even down to the commercials. When you see a commercial for acne cream, they show the girl with acne and they show that she is home alone and doesn’t have a date. Then they show that the acne cream has taken all the acne away and then the next couple of seconds the girl has dates and a bunch of cute guys around her. What message is this sending—that you have be attractive and perfect to get dates and to get men to pay attention to you?

The term “hootchie mama” started in the ghetto with R&B and hip-hop music, but it is a mainstream idea. It is the physical presentation of women and our deep need for attention from men.

When I was fourteen years old, I started being more daring with my clothes. I was buying my tops a little tighter and wearing my skirts a little shorter. When I would buy jeans, I would buy jeans one or two sizes too small. I remember being in the store with my friends and overhearing all kinds of conversations with mothers and daughters about how tight the jeans were and I could hear the mothers saying you can’t wear those, they are too tight. The girls were desperate to get those tight jeans so they could wear them to school. What is so funny to me is that you never hear a conversation like that in a store for men. Men for some reason are not trying so hard to get our attention. Why is that?

Because I was always shoppin’ with my friends when I would get a few extra dollars from singin’, I didn’t have those disputes. Because I spent so much time away from home, my mother was always shocked when she saw me, but there was nothing that she could say. Those too-tight jeans would hug my butt and make it look so much bigger than it was. Remember that song by Sir Mix-A-Lot, “Baby Got Back”? Well, that is how girls like us started cravin’ a bigger butt. That song, which was a top-selling song, is how I learned what to wear to make my butt look bigger than it was. And I’m sure that I’m not the only one who got some tips about what to do to get their men.

I knew I was successful when I started getting looks from men when I walked past those guys who hang out at the corner gas station or those guys driving through the projects. They were checkin’ me out and that is what I wanted.

When I think back on it, I used to think I wanted attention, but what I really wanted was love and acceptance. I wanted to be loved by the boys because that’s what those videos promised. I thought that if I looked like those girls, the men who I liked would like me too. What I really wanted was all the love that my boyfriend was not givin’ to me. When you spend your whole day watchin’ music videos, your world gets real small and all you can think about is gettin’ a man or losin’ your man and everything in between that. That’s the case for girls all over the world. Those videos are such a constant companion, and you can get really sucked into them. And that’s what I see when I’m on the road. I see little girls with clothes that are too small, too tight, and too short. I see T-shirts that say things like “My boyfriend is away,” which suggests that it is OK for her to be with someone else in her boyfriend’s absence. Young women seem to think this kind of attitude is good and gives them freedom, but what it really does is further bad relationships between men and women, and that is goin’ on all over the world, not just in the ghetto.

Another reason that I became a hootchie mama when I was younger was that all of my friends looked like that. I was tired of not being accepted. Dressing like a hootchie mama made me feel included. I looked like the girls in the video and the ones down the street:
finally I felt like everyone else.
I’m sure that happens to a lot of young girls who don’t quite know how to fit in. It’s the girls who are getting attention from men that make the other girls want to be like them and
that
is why there are more hootchie mamas around than we can count!

When I was being a hootchie mama, I was goin’ against the voice inside my head that kept telling me I was different from everyone else and didn’t need to try to be like everyone else. It was God’s voice telling me that, but at that age, I insisted on being the same as everyone else—no matter how bad I looked and no matter what God was tryin’ to tell me. That is just part of being a teenager, y’all. You can’t help yourself.

Just because I used to be a hootchie mama doesn’t mean I couldn’t change, and that doesn’t mean that you can’t change either. You can change your clothes, but more importantly, I hope you change your mind about boys and wantin’ their attention so bad. I hope this chapter inspires hootchie mamas to think again about who they are. And I also hope that this makes a difference for those people who judge all the hootchie mamas that they see. There is more to us than those clothes. We are still people underneath the tight shirts and short skirts, and as I always say,
people are people.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of ways to speak on this topic, without it sounding like a lecture. But because I am ’Tasia and I have lived it, I think that I’m in a better position than most to speak about it. I know that once upon a time, I needed to hear every single word that I’m sayin’ and there was no one who was in the same position that I am today—someone who had
truly
been there. I needed some straight talk without fakin’ or holdin’ anything back. I wanted to make my life better, and most importantly I wanted to know how to change, so I could love myself, finally. I wanted to have the love and respect that I deserved in a world that sometimes forgets that people who don’t finish high school, go to college, or have important jobs are still
good people.

I am an ex–hootchie mama, and I always will be, no matter what happens with my music. And I will always speak up for the girls who are like I once was, because they can change too, if they really want to. I am hoping that you do.

One thing that you all need to understand is that a hootchie mama really thinks she looks good when she sees herself in the mirror. That’s the first thing anybody who is judgin’ needs to know. Most hootchie mamas want to live in the world they see on the television screen. Besides dressing like what they see in the videos, they think differently than most people outside the TV screen. When everyone else thinks that the hootchies have a big butt and should hide it, hootchie mamas think the exact opposite. They think the bigger the better and the more you can show a man, the more men you will get. It’s as simple as that. When you think you’re judging them, they are judging you for not being sexy enough. Being sexy and desirable is real important in this society, and it’s even more so in the ghetto, because if you succeed in being sexy and desirable, people think it means that you will never be without a man.

It may have been boredom that caused me to get up so early in the morning and get all dressed up like a hootchie mama just to walk my baby through the projects lookin’ for attention or just “somethin’ to do.” I didn’t think that I was lookin’ for a man, but when I think about what I was wearin’, I know deep down that I was looking for a man. I was that girl walkin’ the projects and hollerin’ at every man hoping to get a little somethin’ extra—an extra wink or a special touch or a promise that the guy probably couldn’t even keep. I used to look for the guys with the nice cars and the nicknames that described who they were. Those guys with names like T-Money or Ace-Love or Grip were the guys with the reputations. People were talking about them. They were legends in the ghetto. That was the kind of man I was trying to get. And when I walked through these projects I wanted to stand out from all the other girls, so I would put a little rhythm in my motion when I knew the guys were watching me. I would slow down my pace a little. I would wink at them and make sure they saw my butt. And if I had gotten their attention, they would call me over or take the cell phone out of their ear or put their car in park. Putting their car in park was showing that I was worth stopping for. That would excite me.

The conversations with those guys were always the same.

“What’s up?” I would say.

“Whatcha doin’ you? You look good, baby,” they would say. “When can I take you out?” they would then ask.

“Whenever you want,” I would answer.

I knew if one of these invitations really turned into a date, I could just get one of my girls to stay with Zion. That’s the silent code with single women all over the world: whenever a man wants to take you out, your girls will help you make arrangements to be able to go. These conversations would all end with “I’ll call you, baby,” and I would wink at them and know that they would never call me. Most of them didn’t even have my phone number or they couldn’t give a home number of their own. When they couldn’t give their own home number, it was obvious that they lived with some woman. The thing about those kinds of guys is that they were always slightly distant. Most of them sold drugs, and the others sold stolen electronics. They called it “stuff that fell off the back of a truck.” Because they were involved in these “businesses” they didn’t like a lot of people knowing where they were or where they lived. They usually lived with different girlfriends so they were not easily found. They talked to a lot of different girls, so they would have a group of girls to choose from if they needed to leave their current girlfriend’s home and get a new one quickly.