W, Woman Class of 2018
Interview Transcript
(Filler words like “um” and “you know” have been omitted)

Sharldine Desire: First question. When did you start singing gospel music and why?
W: Singing gospel music? Okay so when I first actually started singing it was definitely when…ahh that’s hard! Singing it like in a choir?
SD: Just singing it…
W: See also hard. Cuz growing up, when I think about the songs that we sang a church—we did mostly hymns—I grew up in a Haitian church where the fire wasn’t lit unless the youth choir was singing it… so basically everything was like: (sings somberly in French) and if the youth choir came up then they were singing something hot and very loud and all the granmoun—the older people—were like “Oh gosh, the noise!” And the way the church was separated was that they spoke Créole and French upstairs and if you spoke English you were banished to the basement and that’s where we had service. So as a child I was considered an English speaker because I was born here and my parents weren’t and down there we sang a lot of those church songs that you know growing up…and by you I mean the black kid who grows up in church. That’s where I learned the “This Little Light of Mine,” “Victory,” “The Victory Chant,” and all those songs—that’s where I learned those. So if you wanna go in that sense, I’ve technically been singing it since I was like three. But in terms of organized choir singing…I sang at a choir when I got to high school at a different church and it still wasn’t gospel music. We pulled out one or two gospel songs but we were primarily like remixing Travis Cotrell and he’s like contemporary worship. Either that or some really low-key gospel songs—like we sang “Grateful” by Hezekiah, we sang “I Won’t Go Back,” we sang “Hallelujah Salvation and Glory,” but we weren’t about to go out there and sing “Hosana,” we weren’t about to go up there and sing some Tye Tribbett. So when I say like actually started singing gospel music, like Tasha Cobbs and all that stuff, was when I came to college and joined the gospel choir.
SD: So did you like it right away, gospel music? And what about it kept your interest or made you stay singing?
W: So honestly, like I said, the whole sha-bang of gospel music and singing it was when I came to gospel choir and it wasn’t necessarily that I liked the music—I actually preferred CCM—I really like slower music, lighter music. I grew up on hymns so I like hymns but what happened was…I liked singing about Jesus and I liked the people, I liked the environment, I liked singing in a choir and that’s what kept me staying and now I listen to so much more gospel music than I would before. So yeah do I wanna say that I liked the music immediately? I wanna say that it was more than the music that I liked about gospel music.
SD: So kind of related…why did you want to join—or why did you join—gospel choir at Williams?
W: I knew that I wanted to sing it in school and my whole life I’ve been singing about Jesus and in my experience with God…I don’t really see another reason to sing so that’s what I wanted to sing about. When I found that here, there was no way I was going to do anything else.
SD: How do you think being a part of gospel choir has impacted your life here so far?
W: I’m not gonna lie…gospel choir may have saved my life. When things were very very very very hard for me last fall, there were like—I can think of two groups of people that made it so that I didn’t do really bad things…and one was gospel choir. It was amazing that—I’m sure some people noticed that I was down or whatever but I felt better at gospel choir than I felt anywhere else on campus. It’s where I am the most myself…so can I say that it impacted me? Definitely! Like I said it basically saved me from being worse—from the worst of the worst.
SD: How do you interact with gospel music outside of the choir?
W: For a long time gospel music was considered noise in my house so coming to college and making my own playlists and stuff…I really came to appreciate it more in my daily listening. It gets me hype…I feel like I can fall deeper into the spirit sometimes when I listen to it. The repetition is very necessary for meditation on scripture and sometimes its what it takes to actually bring you into your feels kinda thing…in a way that CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) can’t do. Like it’s a verse chorus verse chorus and I’m like alright the words are beautiful, I can read it like a poem, but when it comes to gospel music, there’s something about the melody, there’s something about the simplicity, there’s something about the repetition that touches my heart like a psalm can. So yeah outside of the choir, I do listen to it…it’s a great way to get exposed to a part of something that I didn’t grow up with, a part of something that when people look at me they assume that I’m a part of it. And maybe I wasn’t a part of it growing up but now I understand a little bit what people associate me and my skin color with and my background with so that’s cool. But yeah like I said, it helps me get places.
SD: What do you think is the difference between when you’re interacting with gospel music on your own and when we’re learning and performing with gospel choir?
W: Hmm those are three different questions…
SD: Okay, let’s start with learning.
W: Okay so learning gospel music…in my experience, in every “black choir” that I’ve been in, we don’t use sheet music. You learn by hearing. You’re not expected to know how to read sheet music or even know how to read for that matter. It can be kind of frustrating. There’s a lot of repetition, there’s a lot of uncertainty, there’s a lot of learning to train your ear. I’m sure that professional choirs read, I don’t think that Trey McLaughlin and those people are like “Let’s just find a note!” I don’t think they’re doing that but when I think of church choir, gospel choir…learning it…it’s a stressful situation. Learning it is stress which is so interesting because when we all just happen to know a song it’s so much different. I think about our prayer circle at the end when we’re all just singing in unison and just doing our own thing and it’s a completely different feel from learning it.
SD: For real…do you like the performance aspect of gospel choir?
W: So at first I didn’t because I was so scared. Part of the reason why I shy away from doing things like leading worship is because I have a hard time detaching being in front of an audience and worshipping or praising and getting in that place. So at first it was really hard, but over time I feel like I’ve been learning that there is a power in praise whenever you do it. And when it came to performing with GC, especially to get over my nerves, oh my gosh. Like the crazy thing about me is that if you ask me to sing a secular song in front of an audience, I’m all for it. I don’t care if I mess up. But when it comes to singing a gospel song for God in front of an audience, I’m suddenly very very very self-conscious. So with GC I learned to really get in touch with the words, with the lyrics, with the spirit while on stage—that was a big deal for me. And there’s something really powerful in being able to do that because it’s actually very personal. It’s like inviting somebody into your praise; it’s inviting someone into your vulnerability. Cuz singing gospel music is a very vulnerable act for me, it’s a part of my relationship with God. So at first I didn’t like it but it’s really, actually teaching me to grow, and it’s opening my mind to possibilities of maybe leading worship one day. Like maybe I can do that and maybe I can help people really praise.
SD: So how do you think it’s read here at Williams? Like how do you think our audience reads our performance of gospel?
W: You know, I wanna be really nice about it. I wanna say things like “I think they feel the spirit…” I do actually feel like they do—people are always somehow very blessed by our performance even though we come off and we’re like “that note was off” or “you guys didn’t take my cue for that part,” but people always come up to you saying “oh my gosh, I felt it right here in my heart.” So I think it’s genuine that people are moved by our performances and I don’t think that’s a mistake in any kind of way—the power of God is amazing—and I think there is something to be said like for me personally as a Christian, this gospel choir really being the only group on campus really proclaiming the name of Jesus, I don’t think it was gonna sound bad in any kind of way to other people…but I still think that when people come and see us, there’s kind of like this spectacle thing where it’s like “Mmm reminding me of my childhood,” or “Wow that’s so good, so much energy out there…something we don’t see all the time.” Sometimes I feel like it can be a cultural spectacle. Like there’s a reason we’re very linked up with the Africana Studies department, right? There’s somehow that link between black music and entertainment in a sense. So that can be a struggle, on this campus at least, knowing that a lot of the time we are the token for things rather than being sought after for our sound or our praise. But I’m almost okay with that because I mean…if it gets heard, it gets heard. And maybe one day—and that is something we’re all working on in every facet of black proliferation—maybe we can be looked at one day with less placating appreciation and more awe and admiration. Like more of that feeling and less of that “Aww, that’s so nice.”
SD: So kind of leading into that, what role do you think gospel music has played throughout history in the black community?
W: If you look at the history of gospel music, you will happen upon the struggle of black people over time. Those two things…one came out of the other. There’s a reason, a lot of songs get blurred as Negro Spirituals as well as gospel music. There’s also the fact that for a long time, this was the only way that black people could express themselves through music. Even if you read like Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin makes a very interesting point where he says that for so long, the black voice, the Negro in America could only tell part of his story and it was through music, it was through jazz and it was through entertainment. So I really think that gospel music was a way of communication, as well as unification across the nation. Like if you think of back in the day, my brain is at the 1920s, the radio was a big thing. It was very important; people were listening across the country. And if someone were able to hear a jazz voice or a Negro spiritual or Rosetta Thorpe singing on the radio about an experience that you shared, that’s kind of letting people across the nation know that you had similar experiences. It somehow united black people across the nation and forged a sense of community. There’s also the black church. For so long that was the only thing black people had onto themselves, a place where they were able to share each other’s presence in that community without being monitored or segregated so that’s a big deal, I think.
SD: Do you think it still plays that same role in the black community, or similar roles?
W: In the United States…like it [gospel] kind of does this thing where it reminds people of their morality or it reminds them of the church that their grandmother grew up in…but when I think about black people today in America there are so many people who’ve never set foot in a church, never heard a gospel lyric, or are like very distinctly Muslim. They don’t associate with gospel music at all. So I wanna say…I wish it had more of an impact but now it’s kind of become that thing like when that gospel song breaks out—like when Tamela Mann came out with “Take Me To The King” or Kirk Franklin came out with “Imagine Me” or “Looking For You”—that one broke BET, that’s how serious it was and everybody was just like “Ayyye Jesus!” So it does do that thing where it reminds people of their childhood, it uplifts them…I wish it had more of an impact. I think it has less of an impact now than it did before—like entertainment with a reminder of things passed.
SD: So how about outside that community, like for non-blacks? What does gospel music mean or what role does it play, if any?
W: I don’t think I can fully answer that question since I’m not part of a community that is not the black community but I look at people like Martha Munizi—like gospel music is not just for black people, it’s an element of praise that just happens to be—nope, not just happens—very importantly linked with black history. But yeah I don’t know…there does seem to be that sort of outside looking in thing…but I don’t know.

SD: Okay so those are all the official questions, but now let’s talk in more detail about this past concert. Just like in this particular one, how it was like being on stage, how it felt singing your solo, how the audience reacted and the importance of that in the moment…just kind of reminisce, take me there—for you.
W: I spoke before about how singing was a very vulnerable act for me so I get nervous every single time—this is like my third or fourth gospel choir concert and I’ve actually had a solo every time. This time was actually a little different for me. It really helped with my move towards praising in the midst of performance struggle that I’m dealing with cuz I was singing “Hallelujah Salvation and Glory” and that’s a song that I’ve been singing for years so I was able to lose myself more in the song and I can distinctly remember this moment where—like during practice I’m so at ease with everyone else and that’s why I don’t pay attention to anything ya’ll tell me during practice cuz I’m like “ya’ll think this is how it’s going to sound on concert day, you are wrong! I know me and its not how it’s going to be.” So during practice I’m able, every single time to enter the praise zone and I was trying so hard to do it and then I was like “W, stop trying, just sing.” And I remember I lifted my hands in the middle of the solo and what I had to do was draw my hands back in—and I remember this moment because I opened my eyes—I drew my hands back in because they were shaking, I could see them shaking. I was like “this isn’t practice where you’re comfortable with everyone, you’re a little vulnerable right now so I had to bring the song—I don’t know how to say it—like into me and it helped a little bit. I still need to work on being closer to the mic, I’ve realized because I’m a little scared of the mic…

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