Diandra Interviews Aisha Badru: The Road To Self Is Enlightening
I love interviewing people because I learn from everybody. The perks of interviewing artists is that they have chosen a career where they, consistently, have to learn and analyze themselves through song. Talking to Aisha Badru about her new record, Road To Self, was beautiful and full of enlightenment because she is, purposefully, seeking to be enlightened. It is her goal, and Road To Self reveals that all the new, popularizing terms like, self-love, self-care, self-empower, etc, are open choices to be enlightened. Hence, in our interview, she talks on how self-exploration led her to see her purposes in this world.
Diandra: Seeing your show and experiencing your music, you are very much a story-teller. How do you think songs are like stories, and what are some stories you wish to transfer into music?
Aisha: For me, all of my songs are true stories so I go into my personal life. The story I want to tell is where I came from and how I ended up getting to do what I want to do. I think that is so rare and not encouraged. I want to tell the story of how I started as this shy person, going to college and through the motions, not believing in myself. It is a lonely road believing in something that no one can see but you, and then accomplishing it and having the freedom to travel the world and inspire.
Aisha Badru – Road to Self EP Documentary – Live Q&A
Diandra: You have said that you want to paint images with your lyrics. What are some your favorite images you have painted?
Aisha: For my song “Splintered,” I say, “We are splintered and we are rotten/ Deep within the walls we have forgotten,” and I want someone to think of a house with a broken foundation and the wallpaper is peeling. I think that has a lot to do with how we look on the inside. Outside we may look perfect, but then you go into “the home” and there is wood rotting and infestations. So that was an important image for me to conjure because I think it is a parallel between how we truly are and what we are presenting on the outside: this facade. I use to watch a lot of house flipping shows, and it is not always done in the best way but you are just painting over the issues. You are not really getting to the root as to what would really make this house strong.
Diandra: Using music to elevate your messages and experiences, name a moment when music heightened or empowered you on how you felt about a situation?
Aisha: Yeah, when I put out my first EP, Vacancy, a lot of those initial songs were about the heartbreaks I went through. At the time, it was not really an empowering experience. It was kind of getting me into all the negative feelings I had about it. Yet, getting on stage and performing them, transformed their meaning to me. It took me from being this “hopeless girl” to this “girl with a story” and connecting people through the things that I have been through. So it, definitely, heightened the experience because it went from a negative to a positive.
Aisha Badru – Prisoners & Guards
Diandra: Your newest songs are about motivation and realizing your value beyond de-valuing situations. What qualities about yourself do you value and others you accept?
Aisha: First and foremost, I think people underestimate the value of being alive. The fact that we are alive is a gift, and, first and foremost, appreciating everything I have been through. I am a girl from a low-income community that got to travel. You know? Just appreciating that I am alive and getting to this point where I see everything I have been through had a purpose. You just feel, “Wow, now I have something to offer the world,” and not needing validation from anybody. Finding the value within myself and honoring that no matter what.
I think we live in a society that is about “What can you win?” and “Why should you win?” and “Why should you do what you do?” I think everybody has a story and it should be valued. Often times, a story of a person that turned their life around can help people turn their lives around, but if they never tell their story then how can you value it? How can they inspire? So, I think, honoring every experience in your life is valuable.
Diandra: So how do you keep motivation to continue forward as an artist with social pressures like the concept of “Winning” ?
Aisha: I think it is because of that pressure I feel motivation to continue as an artist. We live in a place where the “cookie-cutter” example, usually, wins. So to be someone that, maybe, doesn’t fit what you are supposed to “look” like or sings to things that others are not talking about makes me an “underdog” story and I think a lot more people relate to that. I talk about what is important to me, and I know it doesn’t matter that people may not want to talk about it or see what I am talking about immediately. Yet, I also know that there are a lot of people that need these messages, as well.
Diandra: So you consider yourself an underdog?
Aisha: In a lot of ways, I do. When I was growing up, I never imagined being on stage because I had this immense fear of people looking at me or listening to my ideas. In my community, I did not feel accepted so I could not imagine people looking to my ideas or to me for direction. I, definitely, think I have an underdog story.
Diandra: Road To Self is an album on self-love, strength, and fear. How would you define each of these terms?
Aisha: Self-love, I think, it is not self-loving what you look like. Going back to what I was talking about, it is loving everything you have been through and seeing it has a reason. Acceptance is accepting that that road may not have been easy, but it was the one you were supposed to walk and it gives you a different perspective to offer the world. Having the strength to tell your story; even if you are not sure others will listen to it and doing that in the midst of fear. Being okay with being a lone woman even if you do not always want to be a loner and the only one “jumping off the cliff”. Staying in that fear and letting it empower you to become the person you were meant to be. Letting it cleanse you in a lot ways.
Diandra: Advocacy and philanthropy are so important to both your music and social presence. How do you feel artistry is a powerful tool for activism?
Aisha: I think so. I think music is a powerful platform because everyone listens to music. The music I write is not only about activism. I write about love. I think it is important to be relatable, and we can relate to emotions. Yet, we also heal the world together. So let’s not just heal ourselves and our emotions but heal the world, too. It takes us healing our emotional side to then heal the physical world. It is because of how we feel on the inside that is shaping the outside world. I am apart of the problem, too, and if I want things to change then I have to change. We have the power, within ourselves, to fix things.
Diandra: Through Road To Self, what wisdom about either yourself, humanity, or both has self-reflection taught you?
Aisha: It taught me that I am not perfect, but I am perfect. There are so many things I have to overcome emotionally. There are so many things that I needed to overcome: not feeling 100% confident and comparing myself to others. So those qualities I have were there to build wisdom. Those imperfections are what empowered me. So, in a lot of ways, I am perfect though I am imperfect. Perfectly imperfect! I think a lot of times we focus on our imperfections and we do not give ourselves enough credit. Yet, they are tools to becoming who we are and how could I empower others without them.
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