Hold on to Xyon and Freetown

AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

Because Trini to the Bone is an individual feature, all six members of Freetown Collective will appear one-by-one over six weeks starting with co-founder Loy Lyons on May 30 and ending with co-founder, Muhammad Muwakil on July 11.

My name is Shanna Joseph and I am one-sixth, or at least one part of Freetown Collective.

I’m also part of Trinity, the three backup singers.

I am the member of Freetown who would run in the complete opposite direction from being interviewed. This is not my flick at all.

But I do sing in a band with a message to share around the world. So I need to get over the fear of interviews.

I hail from Diego Martin. I’m a Westie. I used to feel like past the lighthouse was FAR! And now I live in the countryside in Central.

As a child, I could go in the road in Diamond Vale. It’s not the same now.

But the world is not the same.

My sister Malene (pronounced Muh-laney) is also in Freetown.

My own family is Wendell and Xyon Neemar-Aleung and me, not Shannon, Shanna –Channa with an S!

My five-year-old daughter is spelled Xyon, pronounced Zion. Most people say, “Oh, so you have a boy?” Xyon is a straight descendant of China, India, French Creole…she’s a Trini baby.

She mixed up!

The community we moved into five years ago, all the people there grew up together and still have this old-time, trusting way.

Diamond Vale Primary was right around the corner: I went in early, at four and a half, not even five.

My mom was a teacher and the plan was for me to not ever be in her class. But I ended up in it.

And the friend, Sheryss, who sat on my left and the one who sat on my right, Christine, are my friends today. Sheryss is Xyon’s godmother and I’m godmother of her child.

All three of us Joseph sisters went to Bishop’s. I really didn’t like school. I wouldn’t say I hated school…but I coulda easily done without it!

Would you like to hear my profession? Teacher!

All my life, being under my mom at school, people asked, “You want to be a teacher?”

I always replied, “
Anything but that!”

And now I love it. I teach music at primary and secondary level.

I’m proud of being a Hilarian. But I don’t have a ring.

I was baptised Catholic, in a Catholic family and teach in two Catholic schools. My daughter is baptised Catholic. I once thought I would be a nun and live my life in the church.

But the more I grow in love, forgiveness, understanding and acceptance, is the more I understand we were created in love. Allah, Jehovah, whatever, it’s the same energy, Jesus. If you believe in and manifest God, whatever you want to call him, it is the same energy that created us.

I have always done music with family. Mom was our music teacher.

Malene called me up one day and said, “You remember the band I took you to see at Satchmo’s a year ago?” She said, “You want to come sing at a show with them with me?”

I went to rehearsal and then there was no looking back.

We were opening for Chronixx.

We say we don’t have fans. We have residents who show up at gigs. And come to believe that something in you is being drawn to this.

My main thing is singing a good message in uplifting music. I feel very close to the messages of Freetown’s music.

After Mud and Lou and they write the basic forms of the songs, we get to create the harmonies, to create what we feel. It’s not them telling us, “We want an ‘ooh’ here and give us an ‘aaah’ there.”

And then Lou will give us that look, like, “Yeah-yeah-yeah!” And I feel that!

I believe in cleansing through music and, if people could be uplifted through what we sing, and feel renewed or refreshed or just more positive…Hey, I think we did what we came to do.

That’s the best part of the Freetown experience.

The worst part is being interviewed. The public aspect of it, the having to share, makes me most anxious.

Yes, a lot of Freetown’s music and message is political. Written by Mud.

But it speaks from a place of love. We talk about the war and the this and the that and what you doing to children – but then we come round and say, “Love! Don’t fight!”

The line that stands out in Freetown’s songs is from the song Bless Them: “No man can take what was meant for you.”

My favourite Freetown song, for now, is Hold On. It’s a song about strength.

I feel moved the most on stage with the lines, “Hold on, don’t you give up!” Lou starts it talking about God knowing where you’re at in your struggles.

My favourite performance moment was in my first trip to another Caribbean country, St Lucia. You could have put us in a hotel, but you put us in your home! And made us breakfast! We’re playing with your kids! And you’re the promoter!

By the time we got on stage that night, I had all this love in me. Nobody could see but I was overwhelmed. I started to weep during Hold On, to the point where I could hardly sing.

Muhammad has his back to me, he’s singing, he doesn’t know I’m crying.

And then, without turning to look back at me first, he just comes over to me, still looking into the crowd, still singing with the mic in his hand. And puts his arm around me.

After that performance, after I had just emptied my entire self, giving to the audience, I asked Muhammad why he came and put his arm around me.

He said, “A little voice just said, ‘Go stand by Shanna’!"

That was the first time anybody in the band felt my energy without me having to say, “Look, I need somebody here.” And it wasn’t my sister, two mics down from me, it was Mud who was in front, with his back to me.

That was a magical thing. I never had doubt before, but I knew then that Freetown was a family, not a band that I sing in.

Walking on the streets of Manhattan as a teen, I’m telling everyone, “Hi! Good afternoon!”

And my friend is like, “Stop being weird! Nobody going to tell you back hi!”

But I miss that old-school Trini. It’s not the warmth of the sun, it’s the warmth on the inside that we take wherever we go in the world.

Somehow, you know a Trini wherever you are in the world. It is a “–ness,” something intangible, an essence on the inside. And the essence had to have been passed on to you from grandparents as qualities.

Have manners. Accept people.

A Trini, for me, is ever-changing. We are in the land of new Trinis, our children, and they wouldn’t have the old-school Trini experience I had. As we grow and the old-time ways die out, they will make a new Trini that will still be warm to others and still different and unique on the inside.

I drive around and see a mosque next to a temple and a church down the road, and nobody bombing them up, all living good. And I understand Trinis are accepting, understanding, forgiving, warm, loving people, no matter where we are in the world.

Trinidad and Tobago has been and will always be the place where I have been allowed to grow and find myself and leave and come back. And still prefer it.

To me, we might be a sleeping giant. There’s so much we have shown and will show the world.

I’m really proud of us.

Read the full version of this feature on Friday evening at
www.BCPires.com

Happy Birthday Rosanna Lee