Nancy Snipper's Reviews
September 18th, 1
pm
Symposium
Features Jean Grae up Close and Personal
Since 2013 she’s made over a dozen albums – an eclectic fare of rap and
spoken worked with oodles of advice and humour too – like a trilogy song about
people getting on the plane, getting up to get something from the overhead
luggage compartment: “Use your core, not the other person’s seat in front of
you for support” – and also people getting out of the place. Jean loves to
write and as her equally engaging interviewer, fan and friend, Matt Sonzola
brought her amazing life as an artist always expanding into other fields and a
woman of fabulous substance, we were mesmerized by her eloquence and honesty.
She grew up in South Africa (Swaziland), moved with her family for a
short time to Brooklyn but settled in Manhattan, and she was very clear about
being identified as a Manhattanite. She blossomed and thrived during the 70s,
and has not looked back.
She’s a very successful on-line artist and has performed in South Africa
but her feelings about the place are still mixed with heavy emotional past
experiences.
She loved working with kids there workshopping with them on writing rap.
An avid cook, she said she wants to get back into cooking (good luck…
she’s done podcasts and web series, and films and spoken words performances and
has traveled the world.
A believer in the return of the
flip phone and being a renaissance master of many different fields, Jean Grae is
a wise soul with an incredibly spirited outlook on life.
She performs at Club Soda tonight at 10:30 pm.
Note: I had come to take in the bands outside Pop Montreal headquarters
on the green, but the music was cancelled due to neighbours complaining, so the
city closed down the shows. Too bad. Jean Grae may have sat on the fence on
this decision; she loves to rap and wake people up with her words, but when
they ought to be sleeping in the wee nocturnal hours.
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