VASHTIE

Most of you know, I was born in the hood and as a product of my environment (and in general, as someone with good taste – just saying) – I am a lover of sneaker/streetwear and hip hop culture. But, I was also a weird kid who grew up in the hood. I landed in the outskirts of the cool kid circle and became the target of bullies because I was also just into other unpopular things, like; skateboarding, comic books and rock/alternative music…otherwise known in the hood as “white people shit.”

By the time high school came around, I was saved form junior high bullies and everyday depression paired with suicidal thoughts. I received an academic scholarship to an all-girls high school in the suburbs. Sure, I was a literal minority there (there were only 4 other girls of color) – but, I didn’t have to face ridicule for being weird…I just dealt with my own insecurity of being poor at a school of mainly wealthy young women. Not a bad trade.

I immediately made friends with a misfit bunch of kids: (For this story, I’ll just mention the main players…)

LEFT TO RIGHT: Farrell, Me, Ashley & Suzy.

Suzy and Farrell:  Twin Sisters that I spent the majority of my time with. Suzy was the joke-making straight A student and Farrell was the anything goes wild child (and yes, that’s her real name).

Ashley: The Artist & Soccer Player. She was effortlessly cool and a straight shooter. She was mesmerizing and I spent the majority of classes we had together, staring at her while she doodled beautiful art over anything and everything.

We had a lot of fun in school and after. The girls also spent a lot of nights at my place, unbeknownst to their parents that my single mother worked regular double shifts and was not home from 3pm to 7am everyday – I was already quite independent, but my West Indian mom’s lack of emotional connection and work schedule allowed me to really learn how to take care of myself. Needless to say our curiosity landed us in many places underage teenagers should maybe avoid, but we learned a lot…

One of the things we bonded over early on was music. We shared the likes of Depeche Mode, The Cure and The Smiths…I put them on to Nas, Rakim and Biggie…they put me on to Bob Dyan and Bob Marley (yeah I know I’m West Indian and Bob Marley is universal, we just didn’t listen to him in our house). Our love for music led us to sneaking into concerts that we couldn’t afford and shows that were not all ages. We have seen so many greats perform; The Cure, Smashing Pumpkins, Neil Young, A Tribe Called Quest (funny, because I’m friends with Q-Tip now) Tori Amos…the list goes on.

So after years of sort of staying in touch, with Suzy at least – She and Ashley texted me about seeing Morrissey and I was absolutely in. Let me just say, aside form it feeling like a cheesy reunion movie…it was absolutely one of the best nights I’ve had in 2017!