Transcript
Words and Their Meaning
Tom Heath: Good morning Tucson. It’s a beautiful day in the Old Pueblo and thank you for spending a part of your brunch our with us on Tucson’s Community sponsored rock and roll radio station. This week, we meet an up-and-coming artist Stevie Rose. and how our intersection with the Tenwest Festival and other artist has created a collaborative project.
Tom Heath: Each and every Sunday our focus is on social cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s Urban core and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From A Mountain to the U of A and all stops in between, you get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM streaming on DowntownRadio.org also available on your iPhone or Android by using our very own radio app. Just head over to your iPhone store there or the The Google play and download Downtown Radio Tucson. Take us wherever you go. If you want to get us on the show. Our email is [email protected] interact with us on Facebook at Life along the streetcar and follow us on Twitter at streetcar life.
Tom Heath: Today is October 27th. It’s the last Sunday in October. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar and we start today with the importance of a word about boundaries.
Tom Heath: Downtown this is a commonly used word, but not sure if everyone is using it in the same manner. What does it mean? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to me? What is downtown? And why does it matter? Well, this show is Life Along the Streetcar and we look at the urban core from A Mountain to the U of A. Some people might see that as downtown with different sections like a Mercado section or Fourth Avenue section or University section. Others see downtown is just that perimeter around Congress and Broadway, maybe including the municipal buildings.
Tom Heath: What about the neighborhoods, are those part of downtown? Some would say? Yes, which neighborhoods. The reason I’m bringing all this stuff up is because we are looking at housing across Tucson and we’re trying to find ways to make it more accessible and more affordable in my non radio life. I’m in the mortgage business and I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with experts from across the country.
Tom Heath: This week people from places like Memphis, Omaha, Cincinnati and Philadelphia, Las Cruces. They were all in Tucson and looking at ways to increase accessibility, affordability and density of housing and they were focusing on downtown. Well, they interviewed members of the community, City staff, developers, Realtors, many others and one of the big takeaways after a week of research was that they couldn’t find a consensus of what downtown Tucson meant.
Tom Heath: Well, the reason why that’s important is if you’re trying to effect change in an area you have to be able to Benchmark that change. So one of their suggestions along with many others was the first and foremost figure out a definition of Town create those boundaries so that we can study those and have data and with that data we can start to make better decisions about affordability accessibility and density. So I don’t have any solutions for you. I just wanted to put that out there. I thought it was an interesting conversation because we talked about downtown a lot and it’s probably time we started to give it a little bit more of a formal definition and Boundary more to come.
Tom Heath: But now I want to tell you about Stevie Rose. Stevie Rose is off to an amazing start in her young career. She’s the daughter of two pastors, once with ambitions of med school and she’s now a poet a songwriter and a performer who believes in the power of the word the written word the spoken word and the word of a song.
Tom Heath: Recently, she was asked to write a poem as narration for a short form of short film that was part of the Tenwest “On The Break” film competition and she jumped at this chance. She’s always wanted to see her words come to life on screen. So this is another way for her her art form to get out. As I learned of her story. I was quite impressed with with her passion and her drive. I also saw the impact of the Tenwest Festival bringing together a community in a collaborative effort that may not have always manifested itself in that same way.
Tom Heath: I caught up with Stevie a couple of days ago talked about her career the role she had in 10 West and the role that ten west had with her and what the future holds for this rising star:
Stevie Rose: My name Stevie Rose
Tom Heath: You’re a performer. Artists and your median is its words.
Stevie Rose: Yes. So well, I’m a I’m a spoken word poet. I’m a written poet. I’m also a singer songwriter as well.
Tom Heath: Okay, did another thing in songwriting part? So you perform locally here at clubs and venues?
Stevie Rose: I do I do. I’ve just started kind of taking that seriously over this past year and of I feel like I’ve gotten a pretty good little holes so far.
Tom Heath: How did you get it? To this even is your family musical. Have you been involved with music for your for your life?
Stevie Rose: Well my so I grew up like singing in church. Both of my parents are actually pastors. So I grew up singing in church and then I honestly like I was on my way to medical school. So I never thought I would do this professionally. I started I started off in the when I went to Medical Assistant school. There were some of them that kind of took me under her wing and kind of Show me that I could do this professionally. So I started kind of putting things out there.
Stevie Rose: I put out my first single I got in contact with lots of different amazing artist here in Tucson that you know do singing they’re musicians poetry different kind of artist probably the most prominent of that though that really brought me into the folder opened up everything for me is Shawn Louis. Okay. Yeah, and since then I’ve been able to network and Explore my art through different mediums. Will there be The Poetry or singing and even others eventually.
Stevie Rose: I loved music. I actually I grew up training to be a concert pianist actually since I was 6 so I took piano lessons and I did competitions and recitals and things like that. But and I’ve always saying like I said, but I never thought that music would be like a part of my life. I kind of like pushed it back. I’m like no, I’m gonna go to medical school or going to be a pediatrician. And then yeah the school World opened up to me something.
Tom Heath: and if you can help me understand the concept of spoken words, when I first heard that I just assume it’s like telling stories. It’s it’s sort of like that oral tradition, but it’s really it’s kind of got a specific sort of necessary form of going to sort of specific connotation. It’s not just talking.
Stevie Rose: No. I know it’s hmm. This is called no one’s ever like asking this question directly like this. It’s like you’re it’s kind of combination of like giving a speech but also I preaching almost I have one of my probably most well-known poems open Love Letter to black girls. That one’s definitely more of like a I’m preaching. It’s definitely more as well as slam poetry. So there’s like slam poetry like that were a lot of times people.
Stevie Rose: We’re talking about issues that are very prominent very passionate to them, but they’re very passionate about and then spoken word poetry is probably a little less confrontational. I guess there’s definitely there’s a rhythm to it them to there’s a flow there’s there’s a difference between like written poetry like spoken word poetry.
Stevie Rose: Like I have poems where I’ve done both of them. And if I have like written them and like for the the show at hotel McCoy that I did it in May for black Renaissance. I had some written poems, but I wanted to turn them into spoken word poetry. So I put a little bit more Rhythm into it. I said certain phrases or certain like Central ideas. I repeated throughout and kind of made it more prominent like hey, you know, this is what I’m saying type of thing. It’s kind of like thing. In a way in the sense of like you can use more Dynamics kind of what you’re saying. Yeah, it is definitely
Tom Heath: Your whole party hold what you hold words longer you emphasize them. Okay.
Stevie Rose: It’s very different art form that they intertwine but they’re also very separate with how you say it. Not just what the word means but how you say it exactly exactly because that’s that’s half of it half of it is just the word and other half is is your tone or tone of voice. So guys just like singing in that sense of like using Dynamics and accenting certain things. It’s really fun to play around with those different things and really make an art form out of it rather than just like reciting or just just saying it.
Tom Heath: And what kind of Drew you to this what at what point did you wake up and say I’m not going to be a concert pianist, but I’m going to be a poet.
Stevie Rose: My first taste of spoken word poetry. I did the first I perform the first version of like it open letter to a black girl I did that. My black history of it my first year of college and I really loved being able to capture people in a different way because I have written poetry. I’m a little bit definitely like around like 15 to 17. I’ve written poetry but I never performed it like that. Like what I’m performing. I don’t have to just do singing and I don’t have to just do poetry a lot of times when I’m asked to do a singing. Her poetry event. I combine them.
Tom Heath: Can you tell me more about the musical side of what you do?
Stevie Rose: I feel like that is definitely more running will always be like my first love so songwriting is like a totally different animal. I think that like writing poetry I love both of them, but I love with songwriting you definitely work with rhythm with poetry but Probably a lot more with what the music side of it. So I love telling a story that’s like I guess more the people can dance to you.
Tom Heath: Do you prefer you play an instrument or what are you doing on stage? You have a band so so I do I’ve I’ve started to have people that play with me different musicians like a drummer trumpet player basis before that. I was kind of just doing tracks. I still have tracks that?
Stevie Rose: I do. Do it was actually exciting. So I mostly do Neo-Soul R&B type stuff with like some like 1920s like jazz influence a little bit, but it was fun because for the taco sauce show when I was asked to open for that. I was little like wait what they want me to open for taco sauce and I was like wait I have like to rock songs that I was never able to do anything with so I was able to do those and kind of like break out of my box a little bit and explore a little bit more and that was definitely a challenge because I for the first time had to kind of compose the music a little bit for the people that were playing with me and like tell them what was going on in my head and convert that and help them convert that into actual music and I’ve never done that before.
Stevie Rose: But yeah, I definitely want to explore a little bit more with exploring more of my musician side of it and I’ve been a little shy Ali playing I haven’t for live shows played piano or anything eventually I want to work that into my Artistry, but for now, yeah, I’m starting to have some people that are playing with me my friends my own Suraj and the awesome trumpet player as well Swindle. It’s been playing with me to little bit it’ll kind of wraps into one the poetry and the And the music but I got the end of the day. The biggest thing is like I want to create a provoking art that like Evokes emotion really they definitely separate things are definitely separate art forms, but they intertwines and I want to intertwine them.
Tom Heath: That’s Stevie Rose, up and coming artist here in Tucson telling about her start and a where her career is at the moment it when we get back from the short break. We’re going to find out about a whole bunch of collaboration that that came together and ended up with her poem being the narration for a short film in the Tenwest Festivals. On the brink film competition, but first I want to remind you that you’re listening to Life along the streetcar on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and available for streaming on DowntownRadio.org.
Tom Heath: We are going to get back to our interview with Stevie Rose, very engaging young performer here in Tucson. And the her story that she’s going to tell next is very powerful. I think over the Tucson artistic Community the collaboration that is happening on many levels and how something like Tenwest can impact the art community even though some people viewed it as more of a technological or an entrepreneurial week. We’ve been describing it as an impact Festival in many different levels and certainly art and Community were part of that. We’re going back to our interview and talk to Stevie about how that came together for her.
Tom Heath: You mentioned you did a performance at hotel. McCoy is part of black Renaissance. Okay, explain your black Renaissance?
Stevie Rose: Oh my goodness. Okay. So yes, so I moved out and I hope this gets out there cuz I’m definitely going to plug Sean Murray. I think strongly is just such an incredible person so he found me on in Instagram because this was back when I was like just putting out covers. I’d only release like one thing girl. He’s like, hey, let’s make a song together. So I started like hanging out with him. He started like networking and stuff with him and he was like I want to do this thing in Tucson because I want to bring artists and not just you know musicians are singers.
Stevie Rose: Well all different types of artists and creatives that are black in Tucson together and then months later. I see him like actually putting Together so he did this event. The first event was black Renaissance. They did a whole month long thing. So every Saturday there was a different performance. I think the first night the first Saturday was hip-hop Night II was spoken word poetry which I perform they have Visual Arts like sculptures and paintings and then life bands.
Tom Heath: So the first I ran into it was that Tenwest they did a multimedia performance. That’s where I met you. Actually it was a hotel Congress and they had Add virtual virtual reality goggles and live performances happening at the same time of the virtual reality, which is too much for my little head to take. You’re involved with a project that ended up being a part of the Tenwest festival and I have trouble chat explaining people how complex Tenwwest is, and I thought if there’s a story that really shows how much of an impact that Festival has in Tucson. It was kind of your story. So, so can you tell me kind of walk us through you know, what how you got involved with attend West Festival in with the the movie that was made about your From your music or your work?
Stevie Rose: Yeah. I don’t think that I would be able to be a part of 10 bus, you know, I thought it was cool. And you know, I knew that black runners thoughts was doing something so I was like, oh, you know I can help with that but I hadn’t planned on like performing her being apart or anything so few months before I was helping my there’s like a whole group of us and I was we were helping Jean-Louis with one of his music videos that he was filming the last one that he just put out bad things and there was a director there William William Morrison and we were talking and it’s just a casual conversation.
Stevie Rose: We started talking about poetry and we bonded over our mutual love of this absolutely amazing. If anybody listening loves poetry. You should listen to the Palestinian poet or read the policy of foot Muhammad dark. Amazing poet so we bonded over him months later. He reaches out to me. It’s just like hey, I know you’re a poet and ten west is doing this Festival this Film Festival. I would love if you or the poem and then based on that poem that can be like the narration for a short film that we can make and you can be in it and blah blah blah and I’ll direct it and I am so excited because It’s one of the things I’ve been wanting to do is have my art experience through different mediums.
Stevie Rose: So already like I’m the poem is written the poem. I’m saying the poems or auditory and then it being able to be expressed visually that is so affirming and like surreal to see that all come together like that. Absolutely amazing. Was it a film of you reciting your poetry or was it a Or something else with your poetry behind it. So the film the film is called breathe. And so it’s actually about my personal experiences with anxiety specifically panic attacks. And I took actually elements of another poem that I wrote about mental health and kind of revamped it and added some other things and I so I talked to him about This idea and then we visually created that and then recorded the poem afterward and it’s it’s literally like the narration of the of the script.
Stevie Rose: He reached out to me. He told me that the film they wanted it filmed at a hotel McCoy and he’s like, I really think it would be cool if we could use the pool and we can play around with this idea of a character that is like kind of in two different realities. I you know, I talk about this a lot in my art, but I struggle openly with mental health and then during that I actually had a panic attack at work and you know, I had to leave work because of that and it really is really kind of awful.
Stevie Rose: But I remember this what you do as an artist, I remember driving home and I was like I should make our of us and I was like, oh I can do it for the filming of the character being tried to Old so it’s kind of hard to explain verbally. But what we did was kind of play around with this idea of so in the beginning the poem kind of talks about how you know, anybody that’s ever struggle with mental health, you know, they kind of do kind of feel like you’re trapped between different worlds you there’s like two versions of you like there’s you when like you’re all right, and you know you’re doing well on and there’s you and you know mental health, you know, your mental health may be acting up. Up, so we kind of played around with that and we did some shots under water to kind of show like the different characters of one on the end of one of them water.
Stevie Rose: It was really cool. I think it was really cool to see people’s reaction. I’ve literally had a shot where I belly-flopped into the water. It was also shot visually using a little GoPro under the camera. That’s why I answered Rampage. Yep. It’s all mine.
Tom Heath: The filmmakers name was William. So he was participating in a competition On the Brink and it was film. It was eight short stories filmed exclusively at hotel McCoy. And then there’s like a time frame in which they could use the property and then those were all displayed at the screening room is part of the Tenwest Festival and that to me is a piece of of Tucson. On that was highlighted and exposed through the Tenwest Festival?
Stevie Rose: Yeah kind of that and like black Renaissance. And yeah, all of it is just kind of connectedness really cool how that happened. What’s next for you? Where are you performing anywhere soon. Are you what’s going on? You got to fly away for you. Yeah, actually excited just had last Friday. I had my first show at Congress. That’s really exciting opening about to open for a taco sauce and should block and then because of that I got another opportunity to perform at another really big venue for first-time Monterey court.
Stevie Rose: So I’m performing at Monterey Court next this coming Wednesday at 9, at 9 p.m. And then I have we see big on December 8th at Shay’s okay.
Tom Heath: And if someone goes to his performances is it Going to be a mix of all of your art?
Stevie Rose: It definitely is if I get to have things that are you know my set and it’s you know, it’s just my show. Yeah, I’m definitely definitely going to do that. I love to show people the different sides of myself and the different sides of my art. So I’ll do a probably a little bit of poetry mostly singing and then I have songs that intertwine music and poetry. So I love to just bring To show them something different. One of my friends just released an EP and she’s having a release party on November 12th.
Stevie Rose: So I’ll be performing for that show at the O comedy club.
Tom Heath: Okay, so something coming up this week Wednesday the 30th at Mount Airy court and then you’ve got the 12th as the next big one in November and keep keep tabs on Instagram so they can find out where you’re going to be what you’re going to be up to and then how can people find your poetry is it? Where do they or do they seek you out if they want to learn more about you?
Stevie Rose: Well, they can find me. I’m most I’m on Twitter and Facebook, but I’m definitely most active on Instagram. My Instagram is I am dot Stevie Rose. I post poetry on my page. I’m about to start up again because I do it kind of quarterly poetry Sundays, but I post on my Instagram story and then Post them eventually on my page.
Stevie Rose: I actually just had one of my first I hacked my first poem published as base and Time Magazine. So if anybody wants to look at that, they can look at that and then I’ll be having eventually some some more of my poems published and my goal for this next coming years actually to publish a book of poetry.
Tom Heath: Very cool. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Tom Heath: Stevie Rose, you’re going to hear a lot about that name. So keep your eyes and ears open for her poetry and her music. Can’t wait to check her out one of her live shows coming up. My name is Tommy Nathan. You’re listening to Life along the streetcar in Downtown Radio, 99.1 FM and available for streaming on DowntownRadio.org.
Tom Heath: Well episode 107 is a wrap got a really good conversation with upcoming artists TV Rose also talked about the definition of downtown boundaries and why that’s going to become important. Well still lots more to come on Life Along the Streetcar. We roll into November and December if you ever want to share a topic with us hit us up on the email [email protected].
Tom Heath: We’re on Facebook and you can find us on Twitter and we’re going to leave you with music today from our Our Guest today is Stevie Rose, this is a song she recorded and released in early 2019. It’s called Cash Money. Once again, my name is Tom Heath and I appreciate your time this week. I hope you have a fantastic month and be safe on Halloween and tune in next Sunday for more Life Along the Streetcar!