{"id":55483,"date":"2017-12-27T02:32:50","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T02:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55483"},"modified":"2017-12-27T02:32:50","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T02:32:50","slug":"corinne-bailey-rae-on-her-nomadic-lifestyle-racial-identity-and-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55483","title":{"rendered":"Corinne Bailey Rae on her nomadic lifestyle, racial identity and pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corinne Bailey Rae on her nomadic lifestyle, racial identity and pregnancy<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

gal-dem<\/a>
\n2017-10-16<\/p>\n

Charlie Brinkhurst Cuff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nphotography Kiran Gidda<\/small><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a voracious reader, you\u2019ll know something about being drawn into worlds that aren\u2019t your own. It\u2019s a tantalising prospect, especially for introverts. What I discovered earlier this year, is that singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae<\/a> has the same magical quality as an enchanting novel. It\u2019s a strange idea but bear with me, because if you\u2019re lucky enough to meet her and spend time with her, to listen to her music, you\u2019ll understand what I mean. Her world, soundtracked by sweet, soulful vocals, a picked guitar and stretching across oceans thanks to her nomadic lifestyle, has just a pinch of magic \u2013 black girl magic<\/a>. She\u2019s created it in her image.<\/p>\n

Bailey Rae was part of the soundtrack of my youth (her debut came out when I was 12), but thanks to her ageless looks it\u2019s difficult to believe she\u2019s not just a couple of years older. Growing up in Scotland<\/a> as a mixed-race girl amongst a blisteringly white population, she offered something that I didn\u2019t realise I needed. Her image was attainable and aspirational. Here was a black, mixed-race British woman making beautiful music with her hair in natural curls, and the type of expressiveness that made her immediately relatable. I sang three of Bailey Rae\u2019s songs (\u2018Like a Star<\/a>\u2019, \u2018Till it happens To You<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018Choux Pastry Heart<\/a>\u2019) from her eponymous debut album Corinne Bailey Rae<\/em><\/a> for my music exams \u2013 A*\u2019s you know \u2013 and, like everyone else during the summer of 2006, had her huge hit \u2018Put Your Records On<\/a>\u2019 playing on repeat for months…<\/p>\n

…From earlier conversations I know that Bailey Rae is interested and articulate on the topic of race. She was enamoured by the Kerry James Marshall<\/a> exhibition in LA<\/a> and recommends to me a book by Nell Irvin Painter<\/a>, on the history of white people<\/a>. \u201cMy dad had come from the Caribbean<\/a>, but he didn\u2019t talk to me a lot about racism which I think was a deliberate thing because he wanted to protect us,\u201d she says about her childhood. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to suggest this sort of inherent thing [\u2026] And then my mum was very engaged. I learnt about South Africa<\/a> and apartheid<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she admits that she and her sisters would \u201cpick the peas out of our rice and peas\u201d, and didn\u2019t necessarily know their black Caribbean nana<\/a>\u2019s culture \u201cas well as we should have done\u201d, it\u2019s clear that she is very in touch with her blackness. When she performs at AFROPUNK London<\/a> a few weeks after our interview, a festival which loudly celebrates black culture, Matthew Morgan<\/a>, the founder of AFROPUNK, tells me that Bailey Rae had been very keen to play. \u201cShe approached me multiple times,\u201d he says. On stage she tells the crowd: \u201cI wish this community had been here for me when I was 15.\u201d I\u2019m at the front of the audience, screaming every lyric back at her like an embarrassing \u201cstan<\/a>\u201d (mega fan).<\/p>\n

There are mixed race people on both sides of Bailey Rae\u2019s family \u2013 she has \u201cbrown cousins\u201d on her mum\u2019s English side as well as her dad\u2019s. When she comments on her cousin\u2019s shades, it reminds me that I\u2019ve read that the term she prefers to use to describe herself is \u201cbrown\u201d too. \u201cAt first we were brown and then we were half-caste<\/a> and then mixed-race and then dual-heritage and then it was ok to just be black,\u201d says Bailey Rae, obviously aware of the debate around how mixed-race people should define themselves, but disparaging. \u201cI feel like I don\u2019t really have a term if I\u2019m really honest. That\u2019s why I say it [brown] in like an almost silly way. As it\u2019s almost like I\u2019ve been labelled so many different things in the past 38 years that none of them feel familiar or satisfying.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a voracious reader, you\u2019ll know something about being drawn into worlds that aren\u2019t your own. It\u2019s a tantalising prospect, especially for introverts. What I discovered earlier this year, is that singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae has the same magical quality as an enchanting novel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,8,10],"tags":[27902,24310,27903,2538,24052,1392],"class_list":["post-55483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-charlie-b-cuff","tag-charlie-brinkhurst-cuff","tag-charlie-cuff","tag-corinne-bailey-rae","tag-gal-dem","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55484,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55483\/revisions\/55484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}