“Sometimes when we’re so hurt, we don’t even know what to say, we can just play the drums, we can dance together, and lighten our spirits...”
Photo taken by Peter Jamus
CEDAR COMMISSIONS SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEWS
Over the next few weeks, we’re featuring the six artists of the 2020-2021 Cedar Commissions (taking place Friday, March 5th, Saturday, March 6th, and Sunday, March 7th) in a series of interviews on our site. The Cedar Commissions is a flagship program for emerging Minnesotan composers and musicians made possible with a grant from the Jerome Foundation.
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, these artists have been composing, exploring new ideas, and assembling teams of musicians to bring their work to fruition. Over the three nights of The Cedar Commissions, audience members will hear music inspired by the process of finding beauty in mental illness, stories of the Portuguese diaspora, evolution of the Hmong language, Black Muslim American fatherhood, addressing personal traumas, healing through Bomba, and so much more.
Through storytelling, dance, and music, Tearra has been exploring the narrative of her ancestry. She tells us how healing, activism, anger, humor, and joy can all coexist in Bomba. Aida Shahghasemi, The Cedar’s marketing and communications manager sat down with Tearra for a conversation.
Aida: I would love to know more about your childhood, if you don't mind sharing that, and I would love to know if you grew up around Bomba. Was your family deeply interested in music?
Tearra: Yeah. My parents, they love music. They've always loved music. My dad was DJing parties, and my mom, she knows lyrics really well, but as far as playing: no, neither of them sing or drum or anything like that. But they were interested and I really loved listening to the music that they would play. I listened to a lot of R&B like 80s, 90s, R&B: Babyface, Bobby Brown, Terence Trent D'Arby kind of stuff. My dad was more into 70s and 80s funk, so that was really fun, and then Bomba.
When I was seven, I was invited to a Bomba class in St. Paul. Bomba is from Puerto Rico, but there was a woman here in the Twin Cities that was teaching, and so that's when I started dancing and drumming and singing, and it was a beautiful outlet for me. Growing up was kind of difficult with my family... kind of bouncing around place-to place, and not really a lot of structure and stability. But, Bomba was definitely something that I was able to escape from everything else at home and go to a place that I could channel all of that energy and really learn about my ancestors too, and their strength and resilience and this healing too. They were able to get through slavery. It was enslaved Africans that were in Puerto Rico that used their rhythms from Africa and some of their movements and also made fun of their Spanish colonizers. They used some Flamenco to really just find community and channel all of their hurt and their pain, and tell stories about what was going on every Sunday. They would do that every Sunday when they had a day off. So there was a great sense of community and something that I was able to experience and learn about as a young kid, and now I'm like, Yeah, I wanna do this more, and then also transforming it into something new.
Aida: I actually was really interested in the humor aspect of Bomba that you just touched on, I had seen a video of you dancing and I had noticed some of the Flamenco movements that were introduced in some of what you were doing. I was really curious to know more about the history of Bomba in general.
Tearra: For sure. Yeah, so the enslaved Africans in Puerto Rico created Bomba. They took their African rhythms, they actually made drums out of rum barrels that would wash up on the shore, and they would make "Bariles" with goat hide. So really, they would just use what they found to make drums, and then really the awesome aspect of the dance part of Bomba is that the dancer is improvising and the drummer has to follow what the dancer is doing. So you actually usually have two drummers at least one holding up the basic rhythm and then a "primo", which is the "subidor". They would follow the dancers movements. So really the dancer is contributing to the sound of Bomba also.
If you think about it, Movement... Playing music... That's really healing. So it was something that they could use to get through these tremendous, terrible, horrific times. So when I think about playing Bomba, I sometimes just remember if my ancestors could get through that, and they could live on and make new babies all the way to me... Like, Wow! I can use this as a tool to heal myself in my community also. Sometimes when we're so hurt, we don't even know what to say, we can just play the drums, we can dance together, and lighten our spirits and strengthen our spirits.
Actually playing the drums has been known to call on your ancestors. So I was thinking about that last night, just all of the things that we saw going on at the Capitol yesterday, it was really disheartening, and I was like, wow, I'm gonna cry it out for a minute, and then I'm gonna go play my drums, and just think about my ancestors and their strength and preserve myself. Because I think that's something that's so important that we don't always think about as activist. Yes, it's important to understand the truth and let yourself be angry, and at the same time, what can we do to preserve our bodies and our minds and our spirits to be able to get up and fight another day, or get up and be positive whenever we can.
Aida: I'm curious, if you play the drums for your son.
Tearra: Yeah. He plays the drums too. Sometimes I'm like, Oh, you just did that better than I did, was that an accident or did you know what you were doing?
Aida: Do you teach him specific patterns?
Tearra: We just let him play... Honestly, at this point, I can set a drum in front of him, and if I start drumming a specific rhythm, he'll leave the drum and come to me and try to play on top of what I'm doing. I'll play different rhythms in front of him, but he's kind of improvising at this point, which is really awesome actually. It's kind of weird because there are certain movements that we see in Bomba. One of the movements is your feet stomping on the ground, kinda like your hands do on a drum, and he does that! I don't think he's seen me do that before, and I'm like, are the ancestors just in your body or like... I don't know!
Aida: You seem to have had and continue to have a really successful modeling and acting career, and you have a background in theater. So when did you decide you wanted to delve into your musical side?
Tearra: I think music has always been something that I weaved in and out of my life... whether it was watching the movie, Arachnophobia, as a teenager and I was just so scared that I wrote a song about it, to being really interested in instruments. I was really interested in guitar, so I picked that up and just taught myself chords, looked up tabs online. One of the songs I loved was that Sugar Ray song, "Every morning," so kind of just playing around and teaching myself stuff, same with keyboards. I had [a keyboard] that showed you where to play different chords for different classical songs, like Moonlight Sonata. So I'd play around with that. And Bomba is definitely song and drum, so growing up with people in Minnesota that were teaching it, and then they would bring folks from Chicago and New York to teach us here, and we actually got to play in New York, Chicago and Puerto Rico at different events and parades and stuff. That was part of it too.
I also grew up doing flute in school, so that was how I learned how to read music. I wanted to play saxophone, but the day we went to the store, they didn't have any, and so I was like, "choose another one, girl!" I was like, okay, let me do this one. It ended up being really cool. I've just always been interested in musicality, and I think before now, I've been more led by what's happening around me instead of being very focused on what I wanna do with my time. I think modeling and acting kind of picked up more after I graduated college, actually, when I quit my job after a year. I had a full-time desk job in a bank, and I was like, oh, this is killing my spirit! I wanna do something different, and I didn't know what to do. So I was doing music, playing with different bands, but that wasn't as lucrative. So I learned about modeling and kind of started doing that. But yeah, music has always been just something that I could fall back on that would pluck at my heart strings and make me feel better whenever I needed it.
Photo was sourced from Tearra Oso.
Aida: We're certainly happy you've decided to explore more of your musical side. How did you end up working with St. Paul Slim, Toki Wright, Just.Live, and Wyclef Jean? What was it like working with them?
Tearra: That's so funny 'cause I forgot about a lot of that stuff. It was a while ago. I know Toki and slim. A really good friend, a manager, Reggie Henderson, reached out to me for a song saying that they need something better, they just needed like a hook. So I got to know them better and worked with them on some other things. And then, Wyclef, I never got in the studio with him, but I was just on a song with him because of the guys from Just.Live, so Beef Morgan and Courtney Richards, who is actually in so many commercials now! It's been really crazy, but they're amazing beat makers too. They were working on a lot of stuff and they brought me into... I can't remember what the studio is called, It's in the Depot building in downtown St. Paul, so we just worked on a lot of songs together, and that happened to be one of them.
I actually moved to LA a few times. And this last time I did, I ran into this guy. He goes by the name, DJ Rebel. He's Ne-Yo's, DJ. And I was like, You look so familiar! And he was like, "you do too! Where are you from?" I'm like "Minnesota" and he's like, “I'm Ji! I engineered your song that one time!” I was like, “dude! What?!” So it was probably like eight years later that we ran into each other, recognized each other. I'm really grateful that I got to work with Courtney and Beef. We all went to Central together. So I think that's how we knew of each other, and then really social media has been amazing because I think when you put yourself out there and you're like, "Hey, I'm working on stuff," or, "Hey, I'm positive and these are the things that I'm interested in." People can connect with that. That's kind of how we connect nowadays, which is really great.
I will say though that I have been in the studio with some awesome people in LA, some other people that are... I would say crazy. Some crazy experiences too, but the most amazing experiences, I would say, are with two people that produced some stuff for me, and one of them is John Paris of Earth, Wind & Fire. He is the current drummer, and he has been such a positive person in my life, and then the other one is Lloyd Tolbert, he has played with The Commodores... And what's her name? Sheryl Lynn. We created a project and I actually released it after he passed away last year. So we were just working on a bunch of songs and it was more like Pop, R&B stuff. But I learned a lot from him too, and he helped me just grow my vocals. Those are probably two of the most positive music experiences I had in LA, but LA is amazing! You meet a lot of people and all of a sudden you're like in Ne-Yo's studio with Afrojack, seeing how Ne-Yo lays down vocals, just really crazy out there! I met some cool people.
Aida: Yeah, it sounds like it! If you were to recommend some important music for people to listen to, what would it be?
Tearra: So many! I know one of the songs... It just messes me up because I wrote a song recently and I was like, Oh no! It sounds like "Aguanilé" from Willie Colón and a Héctor Lavoe. So that's a big one, "Aguanilé". Héctor Lavoe has some awesome songs: "El Cantante", "El Dia de Suerte", which has been remixed by a lot of folks. What I'm listening to right now, which has inspired me recently is Bad Bunny. Man, I love "Dákiti", I Love "Yo Perreo Sola". I love... Even his song he did a while back when he was first starting out is "Estamos Bien", and he was talking about Puerto Rico and how they're good, even though Trump's over here throwing paper towels at us. We don't need you. We're good. He's somebody that's been inspiring to me, whether it's music or also fashion too. I really like Rosalia, she's Spanish, and her vocals are amazing also. But really, I think who has inspired me the most is probably like three of them who are all from Virginia: Pharrell, Missy Elliot, and Timbaland. So you look up any of their songs, like! The production! The musicality! All of it, so they really, really pumped me up whether I need to work out or make myself feel better.
Aida: Wonderful. How do you envision the trajectory of your music going forward?
Tearra: You know, honestly, part of me is wondering about Bomberos that have been doing this all their life. I hope that people understand that I respect Bomba and how it started, and the foundations of Bomba, because what I'm doing... I've played Bomba for a long time and only sang Bomba songs that are traditional, and now I'm creating music that incorporates other instruments, that incorporates English. So I hope folks don't feel disrespected by what I'm doing. I really appreciate and respect the foundations of Bomba and the people that have taught it to me, that have brought it to today, so I hope that's understood by everybody. But yeah, I don't know, I'm really excited to see, I think with this performance, I was really focusing on activism and folks who are in the fight for justice, so I wanted to make sure I brought up my friend Philando Castile, who I went to Central with. We were in a theater class together. And then also learning about our ancestors, remembering their resilience, using their strength to strengthen ourselves, that kind of thing.
So moving forward, I do want to make sure that I'm always talking about healing, that I'm always helping people remember that we have to work on healing ourselves every day. We all have experienced trauma in different ways. Trauma lives in our body, so it's important for us to, whether it's just listen to music or move, to learn about our history, so we don't repeat it. So yeah, I do wanna continue to make music for activists and also just make music that helps people have fun and be happy too. Because we need space for both of those things sometimes we need to get serious, and we need to talk about what's going on, and sometimes we need a little break: whether it's something relaxing or something super hyped and having a party and having fun, even if it's just in our living rooms for 2020 and 2021!
Aida: That's fantastic. And what are you hoping the audience takes away from your cedar Commission's original pieces? I know you alluded to the fact that you've been involved with Bomba for a while, and you want to make sure that people understand it for what it is, and no one feels disrespected that you're taking something and kind of doing your own thing with it, but what are some of the other things you're hoping people would take away from your cedar Commission's original work?
Tearra: I hope people are moved by the drums. I think drums are so powerful, we don't even know, they just... they start going and our hearts start to meld with it, and it brings us to places that maybe we didn't know that we needed to go to. So I hope people feel empowered. I hope people find times that they can take deep breaths with us and feel safe and calm. I will bring up things that are hurtful and I will bring up things that are very empowering, so I hope people are ready for that because it's a lot... I actually, I did a piece that was a theater piece, and I put a scene in that had to do with Bomba, and the scene was actually about somebody telling me I wasn't black. And I was like, "Who are you to tell me who I am or who I'm not?" Actually 5% of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade were Africans that were brought to the US, and most of them were brought to Central America, South America, the Caribbean. So you see somebody from Haiti, from Dominican Republic, from Puerto Rico. There's a diaspora here, so let's not single people out and say, If I'm from America or my ancestors were brought to America, then I'm black, and if your ancestors were brought from Africa to Puerto Rico then you're not black. Let's not make that distinction. Let's learn about what happened and really connect to each other. It shouldn't just be brown people over here and black people over here. What does that even mean? We're all humans, and we should really try to connect to each other and understand each other better, because if you're living better... I'm gonna be better too.
Photo sourced from Tearra Oso.
