Artist Spotlight: staHHr

September 4, 2012 by: ThirdEye365 634

Good Morning! We hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekend! Today marks the start of the Democratic National Convention. I think I can speak for Charlotte, NC by saying we are extremely excited! On Friday, make sure you log in to see photo and video highlights from some of the DNC festivities.

Today, we are pleased to share with you an awesome hip hop artist, naturalista and community activist; staHHR!

Photo courtesy of Tukufu Imagery

Skilled in the art of lyrical alchemy, staHHr, has been perfecting her craft and honing her lyrical warrior skills since the latter part of hip hop’s” Golden Era”. Carving a niche for herself by interweaving intellect, natural law, metaphysics and social awareness with the essence of pure, unadulterated hip hop, she consistently provides a welcome breath of fresh air. No stranger to the elements and culture of hip hop, staHHr has earned stripes and sharpened her sword in street ciphers, mc battles (Blaze, The Source, Red Bull, etc.) and performing on local, national and global stages. During the course of her career, this verbal vanguard has accumulated a global fan base and an impressive resume of releases that include DOOM’s “Mm Food” and “Born Like This”, King Geedorah‘s “Take Me to Your Leader”, The Micranots “Obelisk Movements” and C-rayz Walz’s historic 15 minute long “Chorus Collection”.

Memphis-born and Atlanta-based, staHHr is an integral part of the Atlanta Hip Hop community, member of the Universal Zulu Nation (Atlantis Chapter) and formerly the lone feminine component of the Subverse Music and Metal Face Records rosters. staHHr has spit 24K gold bars, shared stages, and/or studio time with the likes of: Del, MF Doom, KRSONE, John Robinson, Lewis Parker, El Da Sensei, Medusa, Jasiri X, Luciano, Amiri Baraka, Paten Locke, Punchline, Homeboy Sandman, Boot Camp Clik, Talib Kweli, Immortal Technique, J-Live, Brother J (X-Clan), C-rayz Walz and Invincible to name a few.

staHHr was featured in the March 2012 issue of The Source magazine in “The Plight of The Female Mc” article. Her April 2012 release, “Mother Nature with a Molotov: Molotov Season” has received great reviews on many blogs, including “Producers I Know” “Emilio Sparks” and Atlanta’s “Creative Loafing”, as well as having been featured on “The Madeleine Brand Show” (KPCC 89.3 FM in L.A.). In addition, staHHr has lectured on women in hip hop at Wesleyan University, is a health enthusiast and works closely with the FTP Movement, a community-based organization that provides food, clothing and other services for the homeless population.

Photo courtesy of Tukufu Imagery

Please tell us the origin of your name.

It originates from the celestial “star” , because I shine like one, and I added the 2 H’s for Hip Hop to distinguish self from the vast amount of other stars that exist.

I love your locs! Please tell us about your natural hair journey.

Thank you, this is set number five. I began my journey in 1993 and went full natural by 1995. During that time my awareness was heightening on all levels and I had always loathed pressing, perming, etc. so it just made the most sense. I was finally at an age I could make my own hair decisions and I needed to free my ethers up. The crown chakra is where our vital energy rises to, putting lye and high heat that close to our brain is deadly. I am so much happier, less weighed down and there are so many options when we wear our hair natural. I’ve had a low fade, braids, twists, afro, locs. My immediate family was totally supportive, especially my father. My friends were on the same vibration, so we were evolving together.

Photo courtesy of Tukufu Imagery

When did you become interested in being a hip hop artist?

I feel like I’ve been one since birth, it just took living during the Golden Era to trigger my memory. I’ve always been artistic and musical from childhood. When I locked in to hip hop in my early teens, it was a natural fit and I’ve been doing this ever since.

Please tell us more about FTP Movement and why is it important for all communities to have this type organization?

The FTP Movement is a grassroots movement that deals with a plethora of issues including (but not limited to); Education, hunger, homelessness, police brutality, political prisoners, health, youth development and gang intervention. FTP is an acronym that means For The People, Feed The People, Fruition Through Persistence, Free The Prisoners or whatever else you can think of in any given situation. Why is it important for all communities to have this type of organization? Who knows better what a community needs than those that are actively involved with the people and/or are from the community they are assisting? FTP is in the streets distributing food, clothes, information, etc. to the people .. talking to them, seeing first hand what’s going on, putting in physical work to improve things, not sitting behind a desk or just throwing money at the situation.

Photo courtesy of Tukufu Imagery

How does social awareness and hip hop go hand and hand?

Social awareness is and has been integral to hip hop since it’s origin, just like the braggadocio rhymes, the storytelling/narrative rhymes, bboying, graf and djing, etc. An mc, more importantly a LYRICIST is a reporter, a news correspondent if you will. We started out speaking about our reality, where we come from, what we’ve experienced, what we want/need and that’s what people gravitate to … the individual artist’s [life] story. Take it back to “The Message” by the Furious Five. That song was the epitome of social awareness, they spoke on poverty, crime, homelessness, society’s pitfalls. We also have always had artists like X-Clan, Public Enemy, Native Tongues, KRSONE and countless others that create music that embraces the social awareness aspect deeply interwoven into hip hop culture and music. There are many different levels to [social]awareness, because we all have different life experiences and social groups that we belong to. When you have the type of platform that hip hop music affords you, you have a global and universal audience and thus the power to shape perceptions, mold minds and influence masses. To use that for anything less than building, teaching, healing, being authentic does a disservice to the art form and the people who listen to you. Finding the balance between telling your story, entertaining and educating is key. It’s always gone hand in hand. All one needs to do is research and they will see the countless examples.

Conscious hip hop music does not get half of the air play as commercial hip hop music. Why do you think that is and do you think we’ll ever see a revitalization of conscious music in the mainstream?

That’s part of the plan, the last thing the beast wants to do right now is raise the consciousness of the most powerful people on the planet, so of course the music aimed at us is dense, the images are dense, the lyrics are dense to keep us vibrating at a low-frequency. We saw this same thing happen in the late 80′s when conscious music was the dominant factor, they ushered in a lower frequency to take us off course. We are going through some major shifting right now, so why would the music industry created to destroy the light embrace and support our [spiritual] evolution when it means their demise? I feel we need to and will have to create our own “mainstream”. The revitalization is definitely occurring right now; it’s just those of us that are ushering in the change are doing it on our own terms.

Photo courtesy of Tukufu Imagery

What are you currently working on?

I released my third project “Mother Nature with a Molotov: Molotov Season recently and have been promoting that, shooting videos etc. I am also preparing for the More Fire Tour that Kalonji Changa (FTP Movement) and I will be bringing to colleges, universities, lecture halls and other venues this fall. Anyone interested in booking that tour can contact threattothethrone@gmail.com. I have performances slated for Atlanta during The Little Five Points Music Festival September 29 and I will be opening for dead prez at the Elevate-Really Dope Music Festival in Asheville, NC October 6. I have a cds, downloads, staHHr tees, posters available for sale on stahhr.com. I want to send abundant love, light, balance and prosperity to everyone at LiveItLoveItDoIt and thank you for the opportunity to share with the global family.

There you have it! Thank you staHHr for allowing us to feature you and we wish you much success!