TOTE: Who are you?
BS: I'm Bina Shirley.Or is it one of those deep questions? Lol who am I?
TOTE: It is both. It's who you are, and you define yourself.That is what I mean when I ask people: who are you? Why is it important to drip your substance when you can just dry up. You see where I'm going with this?
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BS: Well i define myself as someone who converts emotion through art. I use visuals & sounds wrapped with emotion to explain myself. I consider my music to be a huge part of who I am because of it. If you listen to my music, you pretty much understand me a lot more than speaking to me.It's important to drip my substance because I believe everyone was given some type of gift to be used. Mine is deeply rooted within my spirit so it feels as if nothing else I do will make sense. Everyone has a story and even if they feel like it isn't interesting enough or important, I feel like what I was put here to do was to show people with similar stories, that it is beyond important, you embrace your story because then it is at that point then you've embraced yourself. If I do not get a message out or share my story through the gift i was given, then someone else will feel as if there story doesn't matter. Relatable music is important to me because as I said: I'm a person largely impacted by emotions, so i understand who i am. I would never let my substance dry when I was giving such a fruitful gift. My fruits have lots of substance that all people could relate to, whether i drip, poison, passion, truth, honesty, anger, happiness...it's what everyone needs i believe. Especially our culture.TOTE: Where are you from originally? How did your journey in music start?BS: Where am I from originally? Originally, i'm from White Plains, Gun Hill Road, but i mainly represent Jamaica, Queens where i grew up .My journey in music started from age 8, that's when i began to pick up a love for singing. I wasn't really good at it, if you ask me looking back at those home videos, but i surrounded myself with a constant flow of music & musicals & choir activities until eventually i started to get the hang of it throughout the years. I started to take it seriously in the year 2008, when i was with a group of friends i was very close too. We started playing around one day walking around on Jamaica Avenue beat boxing and freestyling. I'll never forget how we discovered our first song "Cuz I'm Ill Yo". We were like guys who were like, let's actually write verses for this then come back & do the damn thing. Came back with bars! i realized how much fun we all were having doing it, and so we decided to make ourselves official by calling ourselves GND (Don't ask what it stands for please.... lol). We use to compare ourselves to The Fugees a lot since i was the only female rapper in the group. But once all four of us established that we were a group we later covered and recorded songs such as "Dead Presidents", "I Poke Her Face", and original beats given to us throughout high school. But, unfortunately, college preparations and personal thing's started coming up with all four us so we had to stop functioning as a group. I had stopped writing for awhile & started to create on my own. Suddenly i have come to realize i felt like a huge part of my life was missing. So in 2011 i recorded my first song "The World" which i didn't think was a very good song if you asked me. I started to realize that experience was the key to all my music & i haven't stopped writing since.TOTE: When was the first time you have ever performed?BS: The first time that i performed was with the rap group i was in GND.we performed at a small benefit concert for a college-bound program we were in. Performing with a group was definitely a much easier and smooth energy because you had people to back you up & sort of blend with you, so it was mostly fun performing with GND. The first time i performed solo with my own music was at volume 4 i believe of a friend, Mojo Disco's Paint & Poetry event. It definitely, was a shaky experience I'm not going to lie. I was extremely nervous! It was the first time for me performing solo & i was shook, being that there were so many people around me who were so talented and i had no idea how people would receive me, but as i got into it more. I realized i didn't really care much how people received me. It was about me & my story for the moment.TOTE: Who are you mostly influence by?BS: All of my influences happen to be musicians because of the close relationship i shared with music since i was younger. As far as family, the only family i am constantly around is my mom, who does influence me but we never shared a mutual interest in music. I'm mostly influenced by anyone who's stayed true to themselves & their music really throughout their prime. That's a lot of folk's really, like Bob Marley, he always shed emotion through all his music and it left such a huge impact on the world and it's amazing to me that his message were so powerful, especially being a reggae artist, and it was influential to all genres and generations after him. He was the perfect example of truth to me. Mos Def is an all time favorite influence because he takes poetry and hip-hop and fuses it in a way that not many artists are able to do and still convey the same message, if not, more powerful in music form, every time i listen to him his music touches me. Common is one of my most favorite conscious rappers, with him i always enjoy his lyrics and his uplifting view of women. Black women in general, i really appreciate his music for that. Jay-Z of course because he's a musical genius and best businessman in my book, his lyrics always held substance and he did whatever he wanted to do and always stayed true to his substance, totally admire the creativity in everything he puts out. Eve because i related to so much of her music in general, she was just like such a strong representation of raw truth and embracing who she was and all her flaws. Lauryn Hill because she always stayed true to what she represented, which is truth and producing something with meaning whenever she did give you something, it was her all and it was natural. Aaliyah because she taught me how to be comfortable in my own skin, just a positive person all around and Erykah Badu, she is an amazing performer all around,i am always intrigued by her interpretations on life. I like Kanye for his diverse style. I could honestly go on and on and on about all my musical influences so I stop here. lolTOTE: People say you have that Lauren hill quality, do you believe so? Because when you Rap, you talk about real life situations and the things that are going on around you.What was the worst situation you have gone through and how did you over come that?BS: I don't like to really categorize my sound. I would say I am of course greatly influenced by Lauryn Hill by the way. I definitely feel like we are similar in the fact that the music is definitely based on reality but i do think that I am less censored than Lauryn Hill, the difference is intensely significant to me, but i never deny the influence because of the similarity's she sings, I sing, she raps, I rap, she's a she, I'm a she lol. But yeah, i am honored and humbled by the comparison but i do prefer to be individualized, like many artists do of course lol.As much as i would love to share my personal stories for others to relate to, but i encourage people to listen to my music to understand me & my experiences. The music i write entail a compilation of experiences that i have overcome through song. To gain a better view of my perspective of things, i express a lot of the time in really direct ways . So honestly, not to sound cliche, but to get a better answer to that question, my music explains itself. Listening to my upcoming EP "Close Your Eyes And Listen" being released on November 19th is the best way to gain some knowledge about my personal experience.TOTE: What is the quote that you always live by
BS:"If you tell the truth, then you don't have to remember anything." but also i like to think that some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue" but that's what makes you strong, accepting both the sh***y end and the clean end of the stick. you don't know what life is without pain.- TOTE:And there you have it, thank you Bina for joining Times Of The Essence. It was really a pleasure and honor to meet you and listen to your craft. You will definitely go places. Hurry up and get famous so i can see you on TV and the magazines.And so my children in the future could buy a CD, and say: mama played the good stuff. lolBS: That means so much to me that you said that. I definitely have something in store for the world though, no doubt. I'm happy to hear that you support thank you Queen !!!
To contact, or to get to know Bina Shirley more Add her on FcaeBook@ http://www.facebook.com/binakane
This interview was brought to you By: Kiara Capellan Known as Kadriye Buyuk. Thank you.
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