But when my brother and I rode together, we were perfectly in sync. Around the time we got the bikes, I’d just bought my mother a house that we could all live in: I would get the top floor, my mother the middle floor, and Winki would be in the basement. I was on the road a lot, touring for my second album, and I missed my mother and brother. We were all living in separate apartments, and on the night or two I got to be home, I didn’t always have the time to drive out and see them both. This was my way of keeping my family close.
I found a contemporary house in a nice, quiet suburban neighborhood, but it was brand new and still raw. We needed flooring, hardware, lighting, plumbing, everything. Winki knew a thing or two about hardware, so whenever we had free time together, we’d ride out to Manhattan’s Chinatown and look at all the lighting and plumbing fixture shops, grab something to eat, then gun it fast and hard on the way back home to New Jersey. They were some of the happiest times in my life.
Standing Alone
Redlining down a highway, flying down a mountain, diving out of a plane—these are scary things. But some of the scariest moments in life have nothing to do with jumping off a cliff. They’re about facing down your demons or having the moral courage to walk away when you know something’s not right.
When I was a child, my scariest times were when I felt I had to break away from the pack. Mom and Dad warned me there would be times when I would have to stand alone or fight back, and I dreaded those moments. I stood firm, but inside I was trembling. Sometimes I had to face down a bully or risk being unpopular with the cool crowd when they were talking about doing drugs or hanging out in a bad neighborhood late at night.
I didn’t always make the right choices. But my bad decisions were more out of an overwhelming curiosity than fear of what other people thought of me. I was very young when I’d sneak off to New York City with my brother or a crew of friends. I was barely into my teens when I started experimenting with drugs and sex. But that ability to stand alone was what stopped me from taking it so far down the line that I couldn’t come back without some permanent damage. I would try something once, realize it would be all too easy to get addicted, and never go there again, despite what all my so-called friends were trying to get me into. When I realized I was taking something too far, I didn’t have a problem with walking away, despite what everyone else was doing. I was more afraid of disappointing my parents and letting myself down than losing favor with the cool kids.
Flat on My Face
Fear of failure was another thing I had to overcome. I was a competitive kid, and I expected to be good at whatever I put my hand to, but you can’t ace everything. When I was eight, I tried out for the neighborhood kickball team without ever having played before. I just thought I could do it. I went out there and gave it my all. Somebody kicked the ball at me, and it came so fast that I thought I would catch it, but it bounced right off my stomach and I didn’t make the catch. I got cut from the tryouts that day, and I’d never felt more dejected. The walk home wasn’t very long, but it seemed like forever. I came home crying. My mom made dinner for me, gave me a hug, and told me that she loved me and she was proud of me for trying and doing my best. She told me it was going to be okay, and she was right. Rejection didn’t break me. It just made me that much more determined to succeed. Learning this lesson so young was a blessing, because it’s something you can apply at any stage of your life. You can’t excel at anything in life without a few failures under your belt. Embrace them, because they will make you bold.
When you are consumed by a fear of failure, it’s almost a foregone conclusion. I learned that lesson as a junior in high school when I took a public speaking class. I had to learn a section of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I didn’t study it as much as I could have, and I didn’t sleep well the night before, because I was so worried I’d bomb. The next day we had to go up against another school, and I had to get up in front of this class full of unfamiliar faces and a few I did know from the neighborhood. Of course, I butchered my speech. I tried to be passionate about it, but I went completely blank at times. I got through it, but I missed key lines. My palms were sweating, my throat was dry, and I stumbled over the words. I was terrified I was going to blow it, which I proceeded to do when I got up there. But something else happened. I survived. No matter how bad you think it is, it really isn’t. You live through it and you learn from it.
I did much better the next time. Taking that class and facing those fears allowed me to be able to get up in front of an audience full of people and host the American Music Awards or host a talk show in front of a live audience every day for two seasons, thinking on my feet and controlling the flow of the conversation. It allows me to speak in a roomful of people and be unafraid to go into meetings to pitch an idea I believe in. I can go into a room, face high-powered executives, producers, or financiers who can make it happen, and not be the least bit intimidated. Without that early experience of seriously flubbing my lines and living through it, I never would have had the confidence I have today. Failure is not the end of the world, but never even trying is a travesty.
In my sophomore year, when I switched to Irvington High School where my mother taught, I set the bar even higher for myself. That year they had a big talent show, and even though I didn’t know a lot of people at the school, I really wanted to enter my name and be a part of it. But just walking out onto that stage, I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. I started singing “If Only for One Night” by Luther Vandross, and the more I continued to sing, the more comfortable I felt. I glanced down at the audience and saw something in one person’s eyes and something in another person’s eyes—it was a look that said, “Wow, she can sing!” That was the spark I needed to start owning that song. I lost myself in it, and my fears melted away. I nailed it and got an amazing response from the crowd.
That moment brought me several steps closer to my music career. I started performing with friends, doing beat box in the girls’ restroom at school, rhyming and making beats on the bathroom stall door. I made friends with other kids from around the way who shared my passion, like my boy DJ Mark and Shakim. Once I discovered hip-hop, there was no turning back.
Facing your fear is the one true path to your future—your destiny. Sometimes we fear the things we desire the most, because we are so terrified we’ll mess them up. But think of what you’d be missing out on if you didn’t even try.
Say It Loud
I have a close friend who has the most brilliant ideas. He comes up with amazing concepts like it’s nothing. He’s so creative about all kinds of things, whether it’s a merchandising scheme or something related to a film or music project. This guy is a magnificent master planner, and he’s opened up my mind to endless possibilities. But he’s terrible in meetings. Every time we get in a room with the money people to make it happen, he chokes up. He doesn’t say a word, and he freaks. We would literally be sitting in a conference room with his idea—an idea I wanted him to present himself—and he couldn’t speak, so I had to do it for him.
Imagine how far my friend could go, and what he could become, if he would just open his mouth and say what he felt and thought. He’s paralyzed by fear, and it makes me sad. I tried to tell him, “This is your idea, you’ve got to go in and sell it.” This was his baby, but he couldn’t raise it, or feed it, or do anything with the baby he gave birth to because he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, bring himself to speak.
I’m glad I bombed more than once because I knew what it was like to fail, and I knew I could survive it, dust myself off, and get better the next time. That feeling of falling flat on your face is tough to deal with. It’s uncomfortable. It makes you feel raw, exposed, humiliated. But you’ll live through it and be better with the knowledge you gained from your mistakes. Even if you are feeling uncertain, you have to front a little bit. Try acting like you’ve got the courage and confidence, even if you’re nervous, so you can trick yourself into believing it. Make it a mantra. Say those
affirmations out loud. When you wake up and tell yourself today is going to be a good day, you put that in your mind. You put the energy out there.
Of course, it’s natural to have a little bit of fear. I’m not gonna lie to you—there are a lot of situations that make me nervous. When I’m preparing for a new movie role and I’m about to share the screen with Oscar-winning actors like Denzel Washington or Holly Hunter, or any other great actor who’s been doing it far longer than I have, I get intimidated. But it’s a healthy kind of fear, because it makes you want to do a great job. It doesn’t make me not want to act, it just makes me more aware of what I’m doing.
I had to face some fear recently when I was filming Just Wright. My character has a love scene with the character played by Common, and it’s the most intimate I’ve ever had to be on camera. I did a kissing scene before in Beauty Shop. But despite the fact that I got to kiss Djimon Hounsou, a really hot guy, doing it on film feels awkward. It’s not like I ever saw myself kissing before. I know what it feels like. I know I’m good at it, and I know I feel sexy when I’m kissing, but I never had to worry about whether or not a camera angle is making me look crazy while I’m doing it.
Now multiply that anxiety by a factor of a hundred. I’d heard other actors talk about doing love scenes and how embarrassing it can be with all those people in the room—the director, the cameraman, the lighting guys, the grips. I knew I’d have to be vulnerable and expose some sides of myself, both emotionally and physically. I had to put all of this private stuff on-screen, with no idea how I looked. But you know something? I got through it, and the end product was as tasteful as I’d hoped it would be. Despite my jitters, I had to get into that moment and that character and push through my inhibitions. It’s the only way you can grow as an actor and a human being.
I was even more intimidated when I had to do a scene with a group of women who were not professional actors. These were real women who were HIV-positive, playing themselves in a scene for an HBO movie called Life Support. It was based on the true story of writer/director Nelson George’s sister Ana, a wife and mother who overcame her addiction to crack to become a peer counselor for an AIDS outreach program in Brooklyn. Looking at the real Ana walking down Flatbush Avenue was almost like looking at a mirror image of myself, we’re so similar. We’re both Pisces. We’re both headstrong. We’re both curious about life in ways that could get us into trouble.
I grew up around women like Ana, in the same streets at around the same time, and I did some of the same things. I felt like I could really relate to the characters, to the situations, to a family disrupted by drug addiction. I could relate to all of that just in my own family. I could relate to Ana’s sense of wanting to get out there and see what life had to offer, although we took dramatically different turns. I could relate to her desire for redemption as well, for wanting the second chance to try to repair those relationships. I’ve had the same thoughts. I’ve said to myself, “Okay, I messed up, but I’m back on track and I really want to get things back to where they were.”
Dig Deep
In the group session scene, I play Ana, opening up about her guilt and her frustration as she tries to reconnect with the daughter she left in the care of her mother when she was still addicted to crack. I wanted to be respectful of the other women in the room. They had all kinds of stories, yet they were walking through life, facing this disease. I had to be humble about it, and respectful, because these women do amazing things in the name of HIV prevention and outreach every day. I didn’t want this to be a movie that was taking advantage of other people’s stories. They were real women who faced many of the same situations I lived through. I had to make it real, so I dug deep into my past, from the time I was just Dana, a teenager experimenting and trying to figure out who I was. Those were times when I took chances I probably shouldn’t have taken. I took myself back to those places where things occurred in my life I’m not proud of; where I did things that made me feel dirty and ashamed. So what came across on the screen was pure, raw emotion. I was living through the pain again. It was like opening up a vein. And I’d do it all over again.
Making that movie was life-affirming in so many ways. I was so passionate about the subject that the time between reading the script and shooting the first scene was a month—that’s unheard of! I knew it would be a tough film to make, but it was a story that had to be told. It made me realize how fortunate I was. While we were shooting, I was walking down some of those streets thinking, “My God, I could still be here. I could have contracted HIV.” It made me aware of how serious the issue still is, especially for young black women. I was one of the lucky ones. I made it out of those situations I was putting myself in when I was fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen years old. I had a newfound respect for the courage of these women who weren’t so fortunate; who’d lived through the worst but had the strength of character to keep moving forward, living their lives and helping others.
Brave Heart
Being fearless is about so much more than the daredevil stunts I tend to enjoy. My mother is the most courageous person I know, but she wouldn’t be caught dead on a motorcycle. As a matter of fact, when I was just a baby, a motorbike accident almost killed her. She was riding on the back of my father’s bike when someone swerved into them. The doctors gave her some experimental drug to stop the pain from her injuries, and it almost shut her body down. So no, my mother won’t necessarily be joining me on my first skydive. But every day she teaches me what it means to have the heart of a lioness.
When my mother was an art teacher at Irvington High School, she devoted herself to those kids. The more troubled the students, the more love she gave them. Over the years, she could see what was happening to the middle-class community where the school was based. Drugs were a major problem. More students were dealing and using, and so were their parents. More kids were coming out of broken homes and bringing that anger into the classroom. Gang violence would erupt in the schoolyard on a regular basis. Knifings and shootings were commonplace.
Many times, I begged my mother to quit because I could see it was taking a physical toll. She didn’t need the work. I could afford to retire her. But instead she took on more classes and started a weekly after-school program to help some of the kids who were having personal problems turn their lives around. Ms. O cared for those kids so much, she routinely put herself in harm’s way without any consideration for her own safety. One time, a seventeen-year-old girl twice her size was about to beat in the head of another girl for stealing her boyfriend. This young lady was crazed, but my mother was determined to stop her from getting herself expelled from school, so she grabbed on to her legs and held on for dear life. The girl dragged her for a few yards down the hall, but my mother slowed her down just enough to allow the other girl to escape. The next morning, the young lady was plenty contrite about what she did to my mother.
“Oh, Ms. O, I’m so sorry I dragged you like that!” she said. “Are you okay?”
Another time, my mother walked into a classroom in the middle of a lover’s spat: A boy the size of a linebacker was giving his girlfriend a beat-down. He had a chair raised and was ready to smash it over his girlfriend’s head, but my mother placed herself between them. She stopped the fight. When I heard about what happened, I was horrified.
“Ma!” I said. “Weren’t you worried something was gonna happen to you?”
“Well, Dana,” she said, “I’m still here.”
This quiet, gentle lady moves through her world unafraid because of her abiding love for her students. She’s more concerned about the harm they might do to themselves than to her. “They’re just babies,” my mother says. “This is what God put me here to do. With the right amount of attention and love, they still have a chance in life. They can change.”
My mother’s love, and her unwavering faith in God, trumps fear every time.
CHAPTER 6
Loss
You don’t ever get over something like this.
> You get through it.
—ELAINE OWENS
Your brother had an accident on his motorcycle.”
I heard the words, but my brain couldn’t process them. Until that moment, it was just another ordinary day, like any other on an early spring afternoon in New Jersey. The sun was shining, the crocuses were blooming, and the air had that new-life smell to it. After a grueling schedule of touring in Europe for my second album, I finally had some time to chill out with my friends and family, and for the past several days I’d been doing just that. I was thrilled to be home, hanging out with my homies, seeing my mom, catching up with my brother, and riding around with our Redliner bike crew. I was enjoying all the regular stuff I always did before my music career blew up. In fact, I’d just finished helping a friend move his couch to a new apartment in Jersey City. After hauling that thing up three flights of stairs, a bunch of us had just collapsed on the floor and cracked open a beer when I got the 911 page from my brother’s boy Ramsey.
“Is it… is it bad?” I asked him, already guessing the answer from the tone in his voice.
“I think so,” he said, almost in a whisper.
My heart sank, and I felt the blood rush from my head. I was dizzy and confused. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. I just dropped the phone to my side and tried to let the reality of the situation sink in. But the more it did, the more unreal it felt.
Put on Your Crown Page 9
