spotlight shea diamond
The beat of “I Am Her” sounded to me like a chain gang working in the hot sun. Am I right that you wrote this song in prison? I did.
Please share that experience of what happened in creating this song. Well, I was just angry. “I Am Her” came out of anger, rage, and
confusion, it came out of just being an outcast and being an outcast my whole life. So, for me that was being an outcast from the church and from being judged by everybody to being cast out from my family and my friends, until I came into my truth. It (“I Am Her”) was a response, it was a social response, it was a personal response to everyone who was in my life and beyond. It was a stance for everyone who like me, was outcast and was disposable. It’s saying regardless of who is an outcast or if it’s somebody in your family... just like that person. So, it is somebody’s experience of being “her.” It comes back to we all are her. “I Am Her” just became more than just anger to more of a statement to an anthem. It was an unlikely anthem because, to me, I would try to address
things in a way that was… realistic. I didn’t have any control within the prison, nobody wanted to admit that I was “her.” My energy ever since I was little, was about being told how to be a man, how to be a boy and how boys should act. I never related to that and I always got punished for it. So, here we are; the irony is I committed this crime in order to live my truth and I get ten years in a man’s institu- tion… where they want to call you “sir and mister.” For me, that was the last straw, I was being punished again for being her: for wearing make-up, probably because the way my clothes fit or something. I probably got a misconduct. It was in that cell that I thought about everything… family, friends, and the church. Everybody who cast me out for just for being me. Not because of something I did wrong, but just for being me…I was the feminine energy. That song was a response to a world that said I shouldn’t exist. I have to say, you go all Mahalia Jackson on the closing track “Seen It All.” It is my favorite. “Seen It All” is deeper than being able to be the person who I am
today. It’s about everything that has happened from the transition too; from the process of being barefoot in Little Rock and walking on a dirt road. How I was fighting my whole life to just be myself and how the world was so different. How, before I went into prison it looked different for LGBTQ—It looked completely different then—coming out. Now, years later, after “I Am Her” is released it looks different and it’s going to continue to look different. It’s like I thought I’d seen it all, I thought my life was already determined and my chapter was already closed. I’m sure a lot of people felt the same way then. Back in the day we were told, “Oh no, don’t be no girl, stop
walking like this or don’t be gay.” Now people are accepted as early as three or four-years-old into their truth and allowed to be themselves! Look at the brilliance of it, they are ‘bringing it’ to the world because they are allowed to be themselves and they’re not limited for whom they should be.
Shea Diamond’sdebut EPSeen It Allis now available. For more information or to purchase, go to
iamsheadiamond.com
MY ENERGY EVER SINCE I WAS LITTLE, WAS ABOUT BEING TOLD HOW TO BE A MAN, HOW TO BE A BOY AND HOW BOYS SHOULD ACT. I NEVER RELATED TO THAT AND I ALWAYS GOT PUNISHED FOR IT.”
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RAGE monthly | AUGUST 2018
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