-
OK, hi.
-
I'm a sign-language interpreter
-
that specializes in music interpreting.
-
And you're probably wondering
why Deaf people would attend concerts,
-
but actually, music
is so much more than sound
-
simply traveling through the ear.
-
See, Deaf people experience music,
just in a different way.
-
For example, my friend Lisa,
-
she cuts her hair a certain length,
-
so she feels the vibrations
of sound in the music.
-
And music has psychological effects on us.
-
It invokes feelings of nostalgia,
happiness, sadness,
-
falling in love.
-
It makes you have a feeling
of connectedness,
-
and unfortunately,
-
Deaf and hard-of-hearing people
are excluded from these events,
-
because obtaining a sign-language
interpreter is so difficult
-
and so overwhelming
-
that they simply don't buy
the tickets or they just give up,
-
and this is not OK.
-
We have to make everything accessible.
-
So, myself, I am
a sign-language interpreter,
-
so what I have to do is I have
to take music and bring it to life.
-
In doing that, I become a bridge
-
between the hearing world
and the Deaf world,
-
making sure that I'm representing music
-
and the artistry of what music represents.
-
Now, this is a lot of work, OK?
-
For a regular set that might be 12 songs,
-
myself and a team,
-
we have to study over 30 songs
or more for one set
-
and hope and pray
we have the right setlist.
-
But you know what?
-
You know what the reward is?
-
Looking down in the audience
-
and seeing Deaf
and hard-of-hearing members,
-
all of those people dancing
and jamming out
-
and feeling included
in that music experience.
-
For myself, I'm a part of this culture
and linguistic community,
-
and we all communicate in different ways.
-
Some of us sign and voice,
-
some of us just sign,
-
but no one way is superior to the other.
-
But you know what?
-
Those with hearing loss face
daily battles to communication access,
-
and those barriers
are put up daily for them.
-
And music shouldn't be one of them.
-
So along with Madame Gandhi
and myself today,
-
let's break down those barriers.
-
(Applause and cheers)
-
(Music: "Top Knot Turn Up")
-
(Percussion)
-
(Rapping) This is a song
about getting the work done.
-
Hair up in a bun that's the most fun.
-
Hearing myself think when I go for a run
-
or maybe I'm practicing the drums
-
or maybe I'm writing in the sun,
-
the takeaway point
is I'm talking to no one.
-
Protecting my vibes that are wholesome,
-
trying my best to solve actual problems.
-
If you want to hang with me
-
then you have to roll up
your sleeves and work with me.
-
This ain't no time to come flirt with me;
-
pipelines and drills
are destroying the earth, you see.
-
I cannot stand all the constant misogyny.
-
Tie my hair back so there
ain't nothing stopping me.
-
Top knot turn up. It's a top knot turn up.
-
Top knot turn up, turn up, turn up --
-
about getting the work done.
-
Top knot turn up, turn up, turn up.
-
It's a top knot turn up.
-
Top knot turn up, eh.
-
(Percussion)
-
Tie up and tie up your hair
-
and throw back those curls.
-
So tie up and tie up and tie up your hair
-
and throw back those curls, uh ...
-
Throw back those curls,
-
throw back and throw back
and throw back those curls, uh ...
-
(Beatboxing)
-
(Percussion and beatboxing)
-
I turned off my phone's notifications,
-
so I have more time.
-
No bubbles to trouble
my clear state of mind.
-
One thing to know, I'm not here to please.
-
Hair tied back, I do it properly.
-
My time is not your property
-
when I'm productive like my ovaries.
-
Eh, give a grown girl room to breathe,
basic rights and her liberty.
-
Free from insecurity
that the world's projecting onto me.
-
Please do not trouble me
when I am focused.
-
The future is female,
you already know this.
-
I'm fighting against
the corruption on SCOTUS,
-
upping my top knot
since when I first wrote this.
-
Eh ...
-
It's a top knot turn up.
-
Top knot turn up, turn up, turn up --
-
about getting the work done.
-
Top knot turn up, turn up, turn up.
-
It's a top knot turn up.
-
Top knot turn up, eh.
-
(Percussion)
-
Tie up and tie up and tie up your hair,
-
throw back those curls.
-
Tie up and tie up your hair,
-
throw back those curls, uh ...
-
Throw back those curls,
-
throw back and throw back
and throw back those curls.
-
(Beatboxing)
-
Amber G.
-
(Applause and cheers)
-
Top knot turn up.
-
(Music and applause)
-
Madame Gandhi.
-
(Music)
-
(Applause and cheers)
-
(Music ends)
-
(Applause and cheers)
-
Amber, it's such a pleasure
to share this stage with you,
-
and to make my music accessible
-
to an audience who might be
hard of hearing or Deaf
-
and otherwise might not be able
to be included in my music.
-
And it really wasn't
until this collaboration
-
that I had thought of the fact
that though I work so much
-
in diversity and inclusion,
-
that my music may not be reaching
as many people as it could be.
-
I grew up in New York City,
playing the drums,
-
listening to Nas, Lauryn Hill,
Thievery Corporation,
-
TV on the Radio,
-
the Spice Girls --
-
And for me, music was truth.
-
Music was my perspective
into somebody else's point of view,
-
into storytelling,
-
into understanding how the world works.
-
And yet at the same time,
I felt like there was such a disconnect
-
between the way that I understood
-
my own very multidimensional
sense of my gender identity
-
and the very two-dimensional way
that women and femmes
-
were often portrayed in the media.
-
(Sighs)
-
As I moved through my life,
-
I went on to study mathematics
and women's studies at Georgetown.
-
I was the first-ever data analyst
at Interscope Records.
-
I toured the world
playing the drums for MIA
-
and I did my MBA at Harvard,
-
all with the intention of being able
to make a difference in the music industry
-
and move the needle on gender equality
from the business side.
-
But it was only until three years ago,
-
when I ran the London Marathon
bleeding freely on my cycle
-
to combat the global menstrual stigma
that women face every day
-
all around the world,
-
that I realized that I have a message,
-
and that the most effective way
that I can convey my message
-
was through my music.
-
And why music?
-
Because music caters to the emotions.
-
Music is joyful.
-
Music pulls you in with the beat
and the rhythm and the melodies.
-
The music pulls you in
via the community aspect of it.
-
And music allows you to access
somebody else's truth.
-
In the music I listen to today,
-
sometimes I'm like, wow,
I love the rhythm so much,
-
but the message is so misogynist,
-
it's tough to work out to our run to
-
or do whatever it is
that I'm trying to do.
-
I oftentimes say, "I'm not here
trying to turn up to the sound
-
of my own oppression."
-
You feel me?
-
(Laughter and cheers)
-
So I'm here to build
the alternative instead.
-
In my work, I talk often about
the notion that the future is female.
-
That we can actually look
to the femme archetype
-
and derive alternative
styles of leadership
-
that might encourage,
instead, collaboration,
-
emotional intelligence
-
and building a world
that is linked and not ranked.
-
And so for anyone watching or listening
and experiencing this talk today,
-
I encourage you to consider
the blind spots in your work,
-
and what partnerships
or collaborations you can do
-
to be able to make your work
have even greater of an impact.
-
This next song is called "Bad Habits,"
-
and it's about being
an even better version of yourself.
-
(Percussion and beatboxing)
-
(Singing) I had run out of time,
-
I had done lost my mind,
-
I had run out of time,
-
I had done lost my mind.
-
I didn't know
-
why.
-
I didn't know.
-
I been so pressed that I don't even know
-
what's bothering me.
-
All my bad habits have go to, got to go
-
entirely.
-
It's my year to be free
-
from what's bothering me.
-
It's this society
-
that's killing me.
-
All my bad habits have got to, go to go.
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
Yeah.
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
Turn with me.
-
(Vocalization)
-
Ready?
-
Clap with me.
-
(Audience claps)
-
Now listen.
-
(Singing) Fela Kuti in the 1970s
-
inspires me.
-
All he wanted was his people to be free
-
from the colony,
-
like Mahatma Gandhi in the 1940s.
-
I've been reading about women's history
-
in the 1920s,
-
thinking about how
I could be so much better.
-
Thinking about all the tears I've cried.
-
Thinking about how we could
be so much better.
-
Thinking about all the tears we've cried.
-
(Percussion)
-
Yes.
-
(Vocalization)
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
(Vocalization)
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
(Vocalization)
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
(Vocalization)
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
(Vocalization)
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
(Vocalization)
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
(Vocalization)
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
All my bad habits have got to, got to go.
-
(Vocalization)
-
(Music ends)
-
(Applause and cheers)
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause and cheers)
Brian Greene
The headline of this performance was updated on 7/15/19. The new headline is: Music with a message should be accessible